The Technological Assimilators
by Knight in Blackest Armor
Summary: With the technologies of several alien races at its disposal, humanity had undergone a technological revolution. It advanced at such a rapid pace, far exceeding many expectations. Soon however, the humans learned that they shared their galaxy with yet another group of sentient alien life, but to mankind's horror and confusion, these aliens were not the sort they expected at all.
1. Ashes to Ashes,

This is story is taking a _very_ wordy B-movie (minus the camp) approach, as you could've guessed from the title. Of course, things might change.

...

**|Please input your identification name and number. This terminal is secured under security protocol 10178-4692, implemented August 03, 2053.|**

**\- comm officer**** romuald wyczolkowski/co-7234-1111/definitelycanintospace**

**|Analyzing inputted text... analyzed. Welcome, BASE OPERATIVE: WYCZOLKOWSKI, ROMUALD. What would you have this system do?|**

**\- access file #83664674**

**|Loading file… please wait…|**

**98%... _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/**

**|Warning. File corruption detected, possible outside tampering detected, multiple unregistered programs detected. Your file is incomplete by an estimated 2.0563%. The Director would like to extend his apologies for your inconvenience.|**

**\- ****troubleshoot/run file/input date: a-1961-j-2157**

**|Understood. Running…|**

**Timeline of events starting from: 1961, AUGUST to 2157, JUNE**

**August 30, 1961**: Elerium 115 had been unwittingly discovered by the French scientific community. The discovery of this 'super-element' was hastily covered up by the Council of Nations before sending agents to covertly retrieve the element sample from its containment facility to send it to the Raven Rock Mountain Complex for study.

**February 29, 1962**: It was the height of the Cold War between the United States and the USSR. Prior to the significant series of events that changed the face of the world, President John F. Kennedy of the United States gave the order to authorize the formation of the Bureau of Operations and Command, led by Director Myron Faulke. Originally an organization intended to coordinate American military forces in the event of a Soviet assault on US soil, instead of being sent off to fight the Russians, the Bureau found itself as a bulwark against a more powerful, more insidious threat than communism: the Outsiders.

The Outsiders were a hostile extraterrestrial force composed of a myriad of alien species, but most prominently, the zudjari species. Disgraced CIA Agent William Carter played a crucial role in winning humanity's first contact war with the extraterrestrial forces, but he was of questionable mental health. In the end, Agent Carter was executed for****#########**DATA CORRUPTED**#########****and Faulke was possessed by an ethe****#########**DATA CORRUPTED**#########****tsider forces were forced to stand down and assist in rebuilding the areas they've damaged before being exterminated to the very last.

Numerous scientific and military advances were made thanks to preserved Outsider technology, but advanced "world-changing" technology such as plasma and beam weapons, alien warmachines, computers and aircraft were eradicated. Every single piece of evidence pertaining to a covert alien invasion of Earth were erased from history, with only Bureau personnel and top world leaders as the sole keepers of the knowledge of how humanity narrowly avoided extinction. Finally, the sleepwal****#########**DATA CORRUPTED**#########****not be treated, even with Dr. Alan Weir's assistance. They were left in hospitals for the remainder of their lives.

The Bureau was nearly destroyed in an earlier Outsider attack on their headquarters, but the organization clung to life. Soon, it was rechristened as the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, or XCOM.

**April 11, 1964**: Director Faulke parted ways with the etheri****#########**DATA CORRUPTED**#########****ffering from the trauma he was put through, Faulke shot himself in his office with a smuggled laser pistol. Senior Agent Angela Weaver was named as the new director.

**May 19, 1964**: Director Weaver was forced to leave from office after being judged as mentally unstable, letting Dr. Weir take her place. She was killed after the plane she was taking, United Airlines Flight 823, crashed near Parrotsville, Tennessee after the plane caught fire, which was later found out to be induced deliberately - via a plasma grenade.

**December 09, 1967**: The last of the sleepwalkers were euthanized after a lengthy debate on whether letting them live was a decision that could still be considered merciful. In total, fifteen thousand people died to the sleepwalker virus. Relatives of the deceased were allowed to mourn privately, and were made to promise an oath of secrecy as to the precise details of how their loved ones died.

**October 17, 1974**: By now, the entirety of North Vietnam is under combined American and South Vietnamese control. Armed with advanced ultramodern equipment and ballistics weaponry reverse-engineered from Outsider technology, the US army utterly crushed their Viet Cong opponents, stamping out yet another communist insurgency, much to Director Weir's disapproval. News agencies and other militaries around the world tirelessly searched for the source of the US military's recent advances in technology, but XCOM undercover agents kept them at bay with false information and fake leads.

**September 30th, 1982: **By pure chance, a Chinese science team stationed in an Antarctic research facility discovered a crashed space ship encased deep within a gigantic glacier. Hurriedly extracting the vessel from the ice and storing it within their base, the Chinese were more than happy to spread the news around via radio. The undercover XCOM agent embedded within the Chinese scientists confirmed to her superiors that the alien vessel isn't of zudjari design. She was given further orders to neutralize her colleagues through any means to cover up the undeniable evidence of the existence of aliens, but the agent refused (and was subsequently marked for death for her insubordination) for personal reasons.

Meanwhile, a nearby self-funded American xenotechnology team, upon hearing of the news from their Chinese contemporaries, scrambled to get to the foreigners' base a few kilometers to the west. When the Americans arrived there, however, they came upon a grisly scene: the Chinese research base has apparently been burned to the ground, its occupants grotesquely mutilated and the alien ship's cockpit area smashed open with tremendous force from the inside, most likely by its occupant.

Soon, things started to turn downhill for the Americans. It appeared that the occupant of the alien vessel was running free inside the facility, and had the ability to assimilate the biomass of any living thing it touches down to a molecular level. The alien even seemed to perfectly mimic the quirks and mannerisms of the people and animals it absorbed, and what's worse, with enough biomass, this alien creature can make completely autonomous copies of itself.

This alien was also extremely hostile to humans. Very soon, the Americans were forced to distrust one another, for fear that their colleagues might be have already been assimilated by the alien(s). One by one, the humans started to dwindle in numbers, until a heavily armed XCOM bioweapons unit arrived to secure the area. All that's left of the American research team were rounded up at gunpoint by flamethrowers and were planned to be herded into a secure location, where the XCOM agents waited from the safety of reinforced windows until either some of scientists revealed themselves to be disguised aliens, or they all succumbed to starvation.

But before they could be ushered into their containment cell - the same cell with the alien ship, every single one of the Americans promptly mutated into horrible, living masses of terrifyingly hostile biomatter, before ravenously attacking the XCOM team. Fortunately, the agents were all equipped with wrist-mounted flamethrowers, and the aliens themselves were very susceptible to flames.

By the end of the day, all alien hostiles were neutralized and the science facility twice sterilized by flames. A larger XCOM force arrived at the facility the next day, gathered the surviving agents' reports and detained them to see if some of them were assimilated in secret (All members of the BWD unit from Detachment L:29 were summarily executed shortly after giving their reports. Director Weir stepped down from office after issuing the order). As for the charred remains of the aliens and their relatively intact craft, to this day, they were locked away in an undisclosed location for extensive study.

**January 01, 1984**: An attempted takeover of XCOM Headquarters by a disgraced former field agent calling himself "Big Brother" was easily foiled. Security in and around the base's perimeter has been increased by 150% as a result.

**February 23, 2014 - June 05, 2014: **After several major engagements, a combined force of NATO, EU and US forces (with the latter equipped with advanced versions of the weapons they used in Vietnam) ran down the majority of Russia's military forces, dashing the Russian Federation's hopes of annexing neighboring countries. Just a few weeks after Russia's failed venture, the same military forces that defeated the Russians were forced to protect its territories from attacks by neighboring vengeful nations. It was another several months before matters started to revert back to normalcy.

**March 01, 2015**: The XCOM Initiative has been reactivated once more, on the grounds of another, far less covert extraterrestrial incursion. It was unknown at first, but discerning from recovered alien wreckage, crashed ship logs and captured alien personnel, the aliens - called the 'Ethereal Collective', and led by the 'Ethereal Ones' - were trying to "uplift" humanity for "what lies ahead". During the invasion, XCOM Director Dietrich Thierfelder copied the Bureau's tactics (reverse-engineering salvaged technology from the aliens) to maximum effect, while simultaneously trying to keep the public unaware of XCOM's existence. The bulk of Earth's militaries did most of the heavy fighting, while elite XCOM field agents attacked weak spots in the alien warmachine and performed crucial operations that other human parties could not do themselves.

During the course of the invasion, an ancient organization calling itself EXALT rose up, with the purpose of aiding the aliens in their goal in their bid to assume control of the world.

**May 24, 2016**: By now, a large number of Earth's beleaguered militaries were now equipped with reverse-engineered plasma weaponry and rudimentary powered exoskeletons, with limited access to the creation of MEC troopers. Humans are now evenly matched against the ethereal threat, but Director Thierfelder could not help but feel anxious about the Advent, and how they seemed to be holding back their most powerful weapons.

**September 08, 2016**: EXALT has been thrown out from play after XCOM field agents ransacked their hidden headquarters in Japan. Priceless works of stolen or lost art were given back to their rightful owners, or were donated to collectors for funding. Salvaged EXALT tech were supplied to Earth's militaries, since they were inferior to XCOM's own. However, EXALT research concerning super-advanced gene mods were destroyed, on ethical grounds.

**December 03, 2016**: XCOM agents assaulted and cleared the aliens' headquarters, which was later found out to be just an outpost. However, new technology salvaged from the base helped Dr. Viktoria Vahlen discover psionic potential in humans. Captain Ferdinand Schultz was the first human psionic, followed by Director Thierfelder himself as the second human psionic.

**March 12, 2017**: As dubbed by Central Officer Bradford, the "Temple Ship" that the aliens have been using as their headquarters had been marked for death by the director. Three days later, four squads of XCOM's most talented and most elite troopers were deployed inside the ship, with Colonel Schultz as the designated Volunteer. Fighting their way across the long corridors of the Temple Ship, only four soldiers ever made it to the alien leader - the Uber Ethereal. After killing the last of the ethereals, the Temple Ship unleashed massive amounts of dark energy, which could have turned the vessel into a black hole, consuming the planet below it whole. For reasons only the three surviving veterans of that battle knew, the Temple Ship inexplicably flew into space, where it detonated in a much less spectacular fireball.

Colonel Schultz was presumed killed in action, and his family was informed of the circumstances of his death almost immediately. The petition to turn March 12 into a global holiday by an overenthusiastic American politician has been turned down for security and secrecy reasons. Within months, the leaderless remnants of the alien invasion had been fought off.

Director Thierfelder went against the decision to confiscate or destroy alien technology this time, his reasons being that if aliens attack once more, Earth's defenders will be ready. Soldiers in Titan Armor, holding plasma rifles were now a common sight, and along with reprogrammed Sectopods and Cyberdisks, they patrolled the ruined streets, serving as the temporary lawmen to restore order from the chaos that is the Great Ethereal War. Scores and scores of alien bodies and salvaged technologies in the field of cybernetics were donated to colleges, scientific communities and medical institutions, bringing in new wonders through their inventions, making life significantly easier for everyone. Spaceflight-capable ships reverse-engineered from alien tech soared across Earth's skies, keeping an eye out for anymore alien incursions. Drs. Vahlen and Shen continued their in-depth study of alien technology, and soon, human technology found itself flung forwards by several centuries, ushering in a new technological "Golden Age".

**November 10, 2018**: Production of MEC troopers had been halted this day. Already, significant improvements upon the brave volunteers' base augments have been made, allowing them to live their lives more or less normally, but with many more disadvantages still, with the most persistent being that MEC veterans can't taste food very well, and they don't have a sense of touch. As a result, MEC troopers have been extremely militaristic as of late, reminiscing fondly of the "good old days".

**September 30, 2019**: By this year, Earth's forces have phased out the tank, favoring manned armored walker designs based on the Sectopod, with focus on size increases and armament improvements. In large numbers, the Lotus, an unmanned attack drone design based on the original Cyberdisk, had been deployed in orbit of Earth and the Moon, acting as the first line of defense against another alien invasion. On a side note, "Alien Alloy" has been formally named as Ilyushinite Alloy, in honor of the first XCOM agent to die, after a means to produce them in large quantities was found.

**March 02, 2024**: With aid from superior technology and weapons systems, South Korea takes over North Korea, after the latter provoked the former with frequent aerial bombardments using obsolete, 21st century weapons technology. Everyone in the world laughed at the bested country's expense.

**February 16, 2025**: A new headquarters to house XCOM personnel on the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon had begun construction. It was planned to be used as the organization's main HQ, in addition to serving as a training ground for new XCOM operatives, and a factory for making Crusaders (a new breed of Sectopod) and Voidlances (an improved version of the Firestorm). Construction of the base, as usual, had been done in secret.

**August 18, 2029**: This day, it had been discovered that the alien substance "Meld" possesses some harmful properties, which resulted in a quarter of the Great Ethereal War veterans developing a debilitating amount of diseases, resulting in quite a few deaths. However, with recent advances in gene modification technology, the Meld Recombination Project has been improved in every way, resulting in more powerful gene mods with less adverse effects. Still, Meld is considered a dangerous substance, only to be handled by qualified personnel.

**October 05, 2030**: A third World War had been narrowly avoided today. Terrorists planted and detonated a plasma bomb in Marseille, France a week ago. The explosion destroyed the city utterly, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and destroying several trillion euros worth of property. Several pieces of evidence found at the site of the explosion implied that the US government, supported by the Russian, Australian and Chinese governments, had organized the attack, for seemingly no reason at all.

XCOM agents covertly investigated the area of the explosion and found enough evidence to condemn the attack as part of an EXALT-made ploy to start a nuclear apocalypse. Disguised as French officials, another group of XCOM operatives exposed the evidence their colleagues found. The French people almost immediately withdrew their accusations against the United States, the Russian Federation, the Commonwealth of Australia and the People's Republic of China before swearing bloody vengeance against EXALT. Supplies, construction materials and monetary support from XCOM were secretly handed out to the French government, under the guise of extremely wealthy entrepreneurs.

**April 14, 2033: **EXALT's hidden main headquarters, located under the Caribbean Sea and protected from discovery by an advanced system of highly-discreet laser and plasma defenses plus anti-satellite screens, was accidentally discovered by a Brazilian Voidranger patrol. Almost instantaneously, military aid from France, Germany and the Philippines arrived to support the main XCOM offensive to eradicate the base. Substituting elerium-based weaponry with railgun-based weaponry (as elerium appeared to turn inert when exposed to saltwater), the joint allied forces dived under the Caribbean waters with sectopods and cyberdisks for support. After a few days of protracted fighting, the main EXALT leadership has been killed, and the base they used razed to the seafloor. The chances of EXALT ever regaining their former glory seemed very remote after this day.

**December 25, 2034**: After finally undoing the damage done to Earth in 2031, the world's governments had made the decision to turn their gaze skywards, with plans to coalesce every government into a single governing body in the future. In Christmas Day, 2034, the first colonization attempts were made in Mars, just a year after constructions on Schultz Base on the Moon were finished. Everything seems to be going smoothly so far, but no one was prepared for the discovery that the terraformers in Mars had found, several years later; an alien facility sporting an aesthetic design much more different than those of ethereal architecture. What followed was the shortest recorded reactivation of the XCOM Project. From 2035 to 2040, volunteers for the MEC Trooper Project and the Gene Aug Project have both increased from nonexistence to 40% and 55% respectively.

Before anyone else could get access to the facility, several teams of veterans from the Great Ethereal War had already dropped on Mars, via Voidranger. They were sporting enough equipment to be considered a small army, but once they managed to get inside the facility itself, they were relieved to find that it was abandoned, most likely from several thousand years ago. Inside the facility is the famous Mars Archive, where XCOM field scientists learned everything about the creators of the facility, which was another alien species called "protheans". Soon, the facility and the area around it were declared off-limits to civilians, with the guards having authorization for lethal applications of force.

**April 22, 2036**: Dr. Raymond Shen passed away in his sleep after a protracted battle with Parkinson's disease. It was reported that Meld augments might have saved the doctor's life and prolonged it to some degree, but he refused the augmentation offers, believing that there was no point in enhancing his life artificially. XCOM forces everywhere are in mourning at the death of a very important figure in repulsing the ethereals from Earth.

Dr. Markus Wallis replaced the good doctor as XCOM's chief engineer. Weeks later, a way to replicate Elerium 115 and Meld in vast quantities was implemented using Dr. Shen's research notes, posthumously accomplishing the doctor's goal.

**January 07, 2037**: After continued deciphering and studying of the prothean ruins on Mars, though most of the information in the Archives still remained untranslated and off-limits to human access, XCOM scientists have discovered a warning from the protheans themselves. Apparently, they were wiped out by a machine race of sentient starships called the Reapers, and they left pieces of their own technology to help anyone who found the ruins in the next "cycle". Director Thierfelder didn't take the warning seriously, dismissing it as a long-past threat. However, with his approval, reverse-engineering and implementation of prothean technology was started.

Another technological revolution was kicked off, but most of the protheans' technology was considered inferior to what humanity already has, especially in terms of weaponry and equipment. Fortunately, some of the protheans' technologies could be used for civilian and law enforcement use. Additionally, a new element, dubbed "Element Zero" (Element One was proposed, but it was turned down because Hydrogen was already Element One), was implemented into existing human technologies, after its ability to change mass after being exposed to electromagnetic fields proved indispensably useful.

Dir. Thierfelder, after hearing about the report about a massive artificial construct orbiting Pluto, considered taking the object apart for study, but upon also hearing about the report that entailed that the structure is impenetrable to concentrated fusion lance broadsides and volleys of blaster launcher blasts, he had decided to leave it alone for now.

**October 01, 2041**: The Mars terraforming program has been completed. Mars is now housing several hundred thousand people looking for a place to start anew, but the Mars Archive is still considered off-limits to civilians, but with the "shoot on sight" policy being rescinded. This is the only instance in history where civilians can see XCOM operatives in plain view, but the Archive personnel were still on orders to keep their mouths shut about what they are or who they worked for. So far, about 3,719 civilians have been either executed on the spot or psi-washed to forget about what they saw (punishment for entering the Mars Archive area entirely depended upon the amount of resistance the unauthorized person provided), after they were sighted within the Archive area, whether they ended up there intentionally or not.

**November 04, 2041**: In the next month, after discussing plans to retire and settle down with his wife and children, Dir. Thierfelder ordered a flotilla of Order-class cruisers to escort an Everest-class "dreadnought", the very first of its kind, to explore the construct orbiting Pluto. After an amateurish accident with the ship controls, one of the Orders, the _Paulus Augustus,_ veered off-course, straight to the construct's rotating rings. What followed next could only be described as horrifying as the cruiser appeared to have been "sling-shotted straight to hell" as one of the ensigns in the dreadnought wrote in his report. Everyone assumed the worst, but then suddenly, the _Augustus_ reappeared next to the construct, seemingly no worse for wear.

On the crew of the cruiser's report, they said that they were propelled to another part of space, right next to another, similar looking construct. They immediately repeated their actions after concluding that the construct must be what the protheans used for FTL travel. Dr. Viktoria Thierfelder, in collaboration with Dr. Hongou Marazuki, dubbed the construct as a "mass relay", that functions just like how the Mars Archive described it on its respective article; as a means for faster-than-light travel, using copious amounts of Element Zero as a main power source.

On a more serious note, EXALT forces have turned a lot more aggressive as of late. Furthermore and more worryingly, their agenda seemed to have transitioned from "helping alien forces take over humanity" to "incite a massive conflict so as to have humanity collapse upon itself".

**February 18, 2042**: Director Thierfelder retired from XCOM, along with his wife, leaving his eldest son as the only member of the Thierfelder family still in XCOM's ranks. The iconic duo were replaced with Jonathan Cross as director, and Dr. Reginald Powers as chief scientific researcher. As of now, Venus, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, Europa and Mars were already inhabited by small settlements of humans, with each planet/moon having two hundred units of Lotus attack drones as protection from possible ethereal comebacks. Also, every single family of colonists that expressed the desire to possess firearms to protect their loved ones needed to pass a test to determine if they're capable of handling a single Sunray laser rifle, which is mostly just for self-defense from fellow humans and morale than actual weapons that could damage refined Ilyushinite alloy armor. Humanity continues to grow and expand, with the intention of becoming as great and powerful as the protheans had described themselves as, and with the second intention of avoiding the same fate, if the Reapers ever come.

**September 07, 2074: **Acting over a decades-old plan, humanity's governments have relinquished control of their countries over to a single governing body to administrate the human race - the Federation of Mankind. Naturally, persuading the world's leaders to give up their powers to an organization just recently founded would be a futile effort, so to ensure the smooth progression of their long-term plans, the Council of Nations instead used their psionic operatives to initiate a covert takeov****#########**DATA CORRUPTED**#########****rebranding themselves as the 'Council of Systems', and by using mass relays to propel themselves forward, humans have left their home system in order to expand. Over the course of several decades, humanity now stands massively stronger than it once was back in 2015. The current director, the youngest one to take office - Tyrone Faust - had theorized that if the ethereals tried attacking humanity now, they would be effectively eradicated from existence over the course of a single year. Still, there had been no contact from extraterrestrial life, which most have considered a blessing.

**June 04, 2079**: Human populations on the colonies are steadily increasing. Cities have sprouted up and taken the place of towns in colonized planets. Recently rediscovered Outsider technology paired with plenty of time added more than a few advances in the indefatigable advance of human technology. The combined human military might amounted to several millions of soldiers, whether they be regular humans, augmented humans, Gifted humans or MEC troopers, be they part of the regular Earth militaries, or they're working for XCOM. Humans are now fielding different types of starships, such as frigates, cruisers, battleships, spaceborne fighter carriers and dreadnoughts, as based on prothean and ethereal designs.

In addition to these starship types, humanity had also created its own ship classes, like the hiveship, which is a medium-sized ship outfitted with several drop pods, an entire wing of Voidrangers and a respectable amount of Canary plasma assault cannons, or the terrifying, cruiser-sized devilship, which is armed with a dizzying amount of hull-mounted Unmaker blaster launchers all over its sides, in addition to being plated in refined Ilyushinite alloys.

The most revered ship in the fleet, the Cthulhu-class dreadnought, is a monster of a starship. There might just be a single Cthulhu as of now, but it stretched for almost 3.75/4 of the Temple Ship's original size. It was built around an oversized, 3-kilometer version of the Godfinger-pattern fusion lance, and it sported plasma precision cannons mounted on both sides of its hull. It was even capable of defacing entire landmasses on planets with a single discharge from its fusion lance.

Last but not least, exclusive to XCOM is the Dietrich-class fighter, which is what XCOM hunter-carriers used to do their job: the disablement of enemy ships, followed by capture. The Dietrich is both armed with EMP cannons and more conventional plasma cannons. Whenever a hunter-carrier is around, it is usually accompanied by a flotilla of hiveships and podbearers.

**December 27, 2083**: After Mark Bradford's death a year earlier, Dietrich Thierfelder dies of natural causes, having lived a good, world-saving (but sadly, classified) life. Dr. Viktoria Thierfelder died two days later. XCOM personnel briefly powered down all their facilities, left their stations and sang a song in honor of the people whom many considered as their heroes; Vigilant, reliable, fearless and immovable in the face of the extraterrestrial tide.

_He was getting old and paunchy, and his hair is falling fast,_

_and he sat around the Hologlobe telling stories of his past._

_Of the war he had fought in and the deeds that he had done._

_In his exploits with his agents they were heroes, everyone._

_And though sometimes, to his kids, his tales became a joke,_

_all his agents listened, for they knew whereof he spoke._

_But we'll hear his tales no longer, for the ol' commander passed away,_

_and the world's a little poorer for its hero died today._

**February 19, 2091: **It's the start of the homesteader rebellions. Disgruntled colonists living in the fringe colonies, infuriated by the Federation's escalating militarism, have taken arms against the government to earn the rights to lead their own nation, far from the oppressive Federation of Mankind. As a response, the Federal Navy had kept these rebellions violently put down a single month after they rose up, but the rebellions have so far showed no signs of slowing down. Director Faust was against the idea of intervening at first, but after the rebels on the Zapustiniye colony retrieved plasma rifles from the local Federal armory and used their weapons to take over the local XCOM base stationed in the colony, the director was forced to assist the Federation in grinding these rebellions to the ground. _  
_

**August 30, 2112**: The last "regular" veteran of the Great Ethereal War had died. Recent advances in MEC trooper technology had allowed the human body to remain limbed to pilot a Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit. Limbless veteran pilots of the old MEC models were given advanced base augments that allowed them to feel as if they weren't limbless anymore. Psionic training facilities have become commonplace in a typical human environment, where Gifted humans were taught to properly control their Gift, either in pursuit of their chosen profession, or to enlist in the military as a combat psionic. Gene modded humans have been observed to age significantly slower than unaugmented humans, but the cost of gene mods, the difficult implementation process and possible discrimination from regular humans kept applicants for gene mods just in the tens of thousands, instead of the expected millions.

**June 25, 2157**: Roving asteroid miners from Shanxi, the most populous colonized planet outside the Sol System, had reported that there had been some strange readings coming from the nearby mass relay. As a precaution, Director Faust posted two Amerigo-class science ships escorted by four devilships to the erratically-behaving relay.

**|End of file. Power this system down? Y/N|**

**...**

**_XSV Indigo, Shanxi-Theta Relay_**

**_July 02nd, 2157_**

**_Captain Joachim Granger, XCOM commander of the S:E17 detachment to Shanxi_ \- _Section E:17__  
_**

"What the bloody hell?!"

The alien ships just in front of Granger's fired broadsides, forcefully sending the _Indigo _shaking and dropping its shields down to 67%. Granger held on to his station's railing to prevent himself from falling flat on the floor.

"Holy hell, X-RAYS! We've got contacts, x-ray cruisers on approach! Two hundred Ks to the west, forty five contacts in total!" Rodriguez, the _Indigo_'s chief sensor officer shouted as loud as he could, letting the crew know about the gravity of the situation they're in. "Sir, what do we do now?!"

Granger gaped at the numbers on the sensor screen. 45:6 isn't a good ratio to be. He left the railing and righted his hat. "Christ's blood, tell the devilship captains to form up on us. We're getting the hell out of here."

"Aye aye, sir!" Rodriguez immediately responded before resuming his duties over at his console. "Attention all ships, in case you haven't noticed yet, we're under attack! Have your ship regroup on the _Indigo_, we're falling back to Shanx-"

The alien ships fired again. This time, the projectiles broke through the_ Indigo's _shields and gutted her unfortunate sister ship, the _Henriette. _An explosion tore through the _Indigo_ causing more than a few hull breaches and causing Rodriguez to break his neck after his head was plunged into his own console. The devilships returned fire, causing damage of their own, but they were forced to turn around and fall back, just as the enemy cruisers prepared to fire another volley. Granger was just about to sound a full retreat, when the inevitable came.

Granger was knocked to the floor from the impact. His vision is blurry around the edges, his body felt white hot lances of pain dancing all over it, and the screams and shouts of his crew overwhelmed his hearing before slowly fading in intensity. His last conscious thought was that despite everything that happened today, he was honored.

Honored to be one of the first humans to initiate a successful by-the-book contact with an extraterrestrial force in the last century and a half.

Out with a bang.

**...**

**_HWS Disciple of Marr, Shanxi-Theta Relay_**

**_July 02nd, 2157_**

**_Captain Meril Regulus, captain of the HWS _Disciple of Marr_ \- Draius Ferlodinus Legion_**

"Very interesting..." Captain Regulus muttered as his command ship passed through the wreckage of the destroyed alien ships. Earlier, he was incensed that two of the Spirits-damned ships got away, and that they took eight of his own cruisers before escaping, but since he's now got his talons on some potentially game-changing technology, his anger quickly faded away. It appears that even with their obvious weakness in commanding their ships, these aliens undeniably possessed an advanced form of anti-ship technology, as well as a significantly durable type of ship armored plating.

"Navigator, put us nice and close near the wreckage." He quietly ordered, never taking his eyes off the ruined alien cruisers. "Have the salvage team suited up for a quick salvage run. The Heirarchy is going to _like _this."

The turian shipmaster watched with interest as his men emerged out of his ship in a shuttle. After arriving on a slightly damaged hull-mounted weapon, the salvage crew promptly left their shuttle and began working.

"Captain, we're dismantling the alien weapon, as you ordered." A lieutenant reported to Regulus. "This might take some time, though."

Regulus' mandibles clicked once and formed a turian frown. "It's alright, take your time. We should have all the time in the-"

A loud beeping sound interrupted the captain. It was coming from the salvage team's radio. "What's that, lieutenant? Found something significant?"

"I don't know, sir." The soldier reported back. "The whole ship seems to be-"

Regulus immediately knew what was going on. However, before he could so much as curse loudly, him and his whole ship were erased from existence by a plasma bomb, utterly destroying the wreckage of the ship and destroying any sort of functioning tech. Immediately after, the rest of the destroyed alien ships did the same, taking those unfortunate enough to be near them in death.

The surviving turians could only look on in horror as their victory turned sour on their mouths.

**...**


	2. Dust to Dust

**_Director's Quarters, Level 92 - Officer Quarters and Recreation, Schultz Moonbase, Luna_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0430 hours_**

**_Director Tyrone Nolan Faust - Supreme Commander of the XCOM Initiative_**

_"Early to bed, early to rise," _A wizened, elderly voice narrated in a grainy, old-fashioned radio filter, accompanied by the sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling in the wind. _"Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Good morning, director."_

The voice and the pleasant ambient noise were then abruptly replaced by a woman's cold, robotic droning._ "Director, you have six notifications from CENTRAL and one notification from DE NORMANDIE, ADELIN. Council funds have been added to the project treasury and-"_

A mechanical hand slammed down on the Ilyushinite-made alarm clock, which was reinforced specifically to avoid shattering into tiny pieces whenever Director Faust decides to destroy it in his sleep-addled mind.

Shaking himself fully conscious, Faust's very first action of the day was to take a cigar from the nightstand case. He then set it alight with a lighter built into one of his prosthetic hand's cybernetic fingers. The project director grumbled as he brought up his omni-tool on one arm, reviewing his daily schedule with one organic eye opened halfway, and a cybernetic replacement that's perpetually glaring at the objects in front of it.

Running XCOM in the present day wasn't as glamorous or exciting as it was back in the bloodied years of the Second Contact War, a fact that Faust detested with every fiber of his soul and being. The main purpose of the project - defending humanity from extraterrestrial invasion - wasn't going to be fulfilled any time soon, what with the complete absence of any ethereal invasions for the past century and a half.

The director believed that EXALT attacks were a dime-a-dozen nowadays, and were very quickly repelled with the right application of overwhelming firepower and sound tactics. The renegade organization had been rapidly losing its power, but they were stubborn enough to try and regain the amount of dread they instilled into the populace back in their glory years of 2015-2016.

He never failed to express his displeasure at being ordered by the Council of Systems to send a cadre of agents to quell a rebellion at some backwater colony in the edges of Federal space. He thought it would simply be overkill to send a team of DEW-wielding, exoframe-equipped XCOM soldiers against a fringe colonial uprising armed mostly with antique slug throwers and poorly-maintained laser pistols and rifles.

And that's not taking into account the sheer nerve-wracking quality of the training regimen all agents must complete before they're considered _true_ members of the organization.

Being in charge of the mythical organization basically amounted to making sure that routine base operations ran on time, Central gets the right amount of coffee every few hours, Dr. Shevchenko's engineering shopping list was fulfilled by the middle of the day, and Dr. Garamond's usual lab accidents were not _too_ catastrophic.

"Just another day in the goddamn office..." Faust stood up from bed, taking intermittent drags out of his cigar. "Another dose of goddamn Meld..." He yawned, long and disconsolate. "Another cheque for my goddamn bank account..."

"I'll take that cheque if you don't need it. I could always use a nicer desk."

The director craned his neck behind, coming upon the sight of his personal assistant just getting out of his bed. "I got work to do, Kolarik. You do too, as always."

"Huh, good morning to you too, director." Kolarik grinned and brushed away a lock of red hair from one of her hazel eyes. "Will it hurt if you just called me Maksimilijiana?"

Faust shrugged nonchalantly. "It's a mouthful, but it won't. However, we _do_ need to keep a professional appearance around the agents, don't you think?" He said as he slipped into his uniform and overcoat, just as she clothed herself in turn.

"Sure, but we're the only ones here." Kolarik tidied her hair and tried her best to make herself look presentable. Her prepared excuse as to why she spent a whole night in Faust's personal quarters was that she fell asleep organizing his files and picking up his slack. "Come on, _Nolan_. Show _some_ affection." Rather sarcastically, she feigned being hurt.

The director merely laughed it off. "Ah-uh, don't call me that. Tell you what, give me another two months, and I'll take you back to Earth for our furlough. _Then_ we can call each other on a first name basis. What do you think?"

"Ach," The assistant made a sound of exaggerated disgust. "Don't remind me of Earth. I left that overcrowded ball of smoke and dust just to get away from the bloody Serbs. I prefer it here, thank you very much."

"My hometown, then. Greater Orleans." Faust rolled his mismatching eyes and leaned into the holoconsole built into his door. Inputting his codes, he prepared himself for the same dull routine he'd have to undertake with each passing day. "Hm, Balkanites..."

. . .

**_Combat Information Center, XSV Shimazu, Hoxha Woodlands, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0550 hours_**

**_Colonel Jonathan Shepard - Acting commander of the Shanxi-Theta Relay Expedition_**

"Sergeant Khrushev! I need a situational report, now!"

An XCOM military agent, profusely bleeding from a wound on his uncovered forehead and looking completely dazed out of his mind to even function, nevertheless delivered his report in a precise, clockwork-like manner.

"Our scattered vessels made an emergency landing in Shanxi, colonel. More than half the expedition flotilla was lost to the alien ambush, and the rest of the vessels will have to undergo significant repairs before we could leave the atmosphere. We'll be stuck here for quite a bit of time, I think." He then took a deep breath as he grasped a damaged railing, putting most of his weight on it.

Colonel Jon Shepard inspected himself for damages. He thought it fortunate that he took to wearing his Templar-issue armor about sixty-percent of the time. "What happened to Captain Granger and his ship? Has the _Indigo_ contacted our yeoman, yet?"

"Yeoman Singh's karked it, Shepard," A field agent, already equipped in his combat infantryman's exoframe and an alloy cannon, approached the colonel. "Along with the captain and most of the fuckin' expedition. I reckon you're the guy in charge of us now..."

Shepard sighed, long and hard. Though he can't exactly say he was surprised. "Lewis, we're gonna do a routine maneuver, alright? Contact the rest of the flotilla, tell the survivors to begin deploying EMP packages around their ships, reactivate all available berserker units from stasis and then rendezvous with us to the north, in the city outskirts."

Field Agent Lewis shrugged, pulling his gun up to rest over his armored shoulder. "Aye aye, colonel. Your co-colonel's been trying to contact you twenty minutes ago, if you need to know. You were still in your stasis pod, then." He traced a metal finger over his faceplate, which signified a frown on his face behind it.

"Your woman's been worried sick about you, sweetheart. Aww, and I'm a bit worried, too." Though his mocking voice betrayed the opposite of a frown.

"Ah, come off it, Lewis. We don't have much time on our hands here." Shepard would have laughed, but it was simply not the time, nor the place. "Get to work, before I have you shoved out the nearest window."

Lewis turned about, placing a free gauntleted hand over his armored chest. "You break my heart, Shepard. Both of them." With a chuckle, he left to complete his duties.

"As for you, sergeant," Shepard turned to regard the other agent, his orders already on the tip of his tongue. "I need you to-"

He halted, seeing the sergeant's body lifelessly splayed over the ship's railing, with his blood now freely seeping from the massive laceration just below his neck, hidden from a glance by his undershirt and sweater. The soldier concealed his mortal wound admirably well, knowing that the colonel would've futilely have him rushed to the devastated med-bay section of the _Shimazu_.

The colonel carefully took the fallen agent's corpse from the bloodied railing, carrying it over his shoulders to give it a proper resting place in the ruined crew quarters. He knew for a fact that the sergeant won't be the last of his expedition to die in the next few days, but he nonetheless soldiered on, also knowing that simply doing nothing would be a much worse alternative to what he had in mind.

"Somebody warm up the sectopods!" He called out to anyone listening in his immediate vicinity as he walked to the crew quarters. "And I want all Lotus units online!"

. . .

**_Main Office, New Larkintown City Hall, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0640 hours_**

**_General Malcolm Williams - Federal Navy colonial representative_**

Williams cleared his throat. "This colony is under threat." He declared, in his most gruff voice.

"We need to mobilize all marines and reservists we have in station before the bastards get here and shoot up the place. Hell, I'll have Al-Aziz drop the sectopods planetside - that'll show these renegades not to mess with the Federation."

Colonial Surpervisor Madeline van Hoff did not share Williams' rather excessive enthusiasm for defending the colony. "Okay, just take a deep breath and _relax_, Malcolm. Yes, we've already detected the unidentified ships making landfall in the area around Hoxha Woodlands, but do we seriously need an entire regiment to take care of a few raiders who may or may not be working for EXALT?"

Williams covered his face and sighed into his palm. Looking back at the supervisor with a more intense glare, he continued, "These aren't the usual threats, Maddie. You must have outdated sensors, because yesterday at eleven-hundred, our sensor relays picked up devilship signatures, and I'm quite sure EXALT would be the only terrorist group out there with the means and resources to try and reverse-engineer captured Federal tech."

Van Hoff seemed to take the general's words a little more seriously now. "You're sure about this, general? If this turns out to be a false alarm, we'd have wasted huge amounts of resources that would've been put to better use elsewhere. Maybe we could-"

Just then, one of Williams' adjutants entered van Hoff's office, interrupting the colonial supervisor inadvertently by virtue of looking like she just went through a warzone.

"General Williams, sir." The adjutant saluted the general, who nodded and wordlessly inquired what's wrong.

"Kingfisher Team just came into visual range with unknown contacts approaching the city outskirts via the main road. They counted about five-hundred humanoid figures in dark exoframes, half a hundred MEC troopers, eleven Lotus-pattern cyberdiscs and twenty-seven sectopods of an unknown design." The adjutant paused for breath, wiping sweat from her forehead. "Your orders for us, sir?"

Van Hoff was stunned. Williams knew exactly what he should do, however, and he immediately started walking out of the office.

"Get my men and my gear planetside as soon as goddamn possible, Maddie." He called to the supervisor, as he held open the door. "Time to kill me some sectoid-kissing renegade fuckers." He slammed the door shut.

. . .

**_Cafeteria 73B, Level 44 - Food Processing, Schultz Moonbase_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0640 hours_**

**_Director Faust_**

Having done the first set of duties on behalf of the continued smooth operation of the XCOM Headquarters, Faust decided to finally have some breakfast. He was joined by his three main advisors at the same table, though he was the only one there purely for the purpose of eating.

Central Officer Jan Deckardson, or 'Central', as practically everybody in Schultz called her, downed a mug of coffee like a true coffee-drinking expert. "The observation force we sent to the Shanxi-Theta Relay hasn't made any hails, or responded to any of our transmissions. What do you guys think? Did something happen to Captain Granger's flotilla, or am I just being paranoid?" She looked genuinely dumbfounded, which was rare for her.

"Hm... it is hard to tell with the amount of caffeinated drinks you regularly consume." Dr. Maksim Shevchenko, the moonbase's principal engineer, put away his omni-tool for the time being. Unlike his three other compatriots, he didn't sit, nor he needed to. Due to an accident decades prior, his lower body had to be replaced by a talon-tipped, arachnid-like mechanical platform he designed and fabricated himself. "Perhaps it would be wise if you refrain from drinking any more than three mugs a day, or one mug for espresso."

"You know as much as I do how I need these to function properly, Shev." Deckardson gestured at the empty mugs neatly stacked on her corner of the table. She sighed and leaned forwards, her eyes taking a misty look. "I miss Field Agent Parker. His homebrewed espresso kept me awake for almost three days straight."

"Yeah, too bad he decided to fuck us over by selling our bloody gear to the black market. Can't believe he thought the pay's shitty in this organization. His standards were set just too damn high." Dr. Arthur Garamond rasped. He was XCOM's rather sickly chief scientific researcher, and rival to his engineering counterpart. He appeared to struggle just by speaking, but his brilliant mind more than compensated for his physical shortcomings. "He deserved what he got. I just wish I was the one to pull the trigger on that smug wanker's face."

Faust shook his head, choosing not to involve himself with his advisors' rather inane conversations. Checking his extranet account with his omni-tool, he expected to see his daily report for the previous day from the Council of Systems. He found a new message almost immediately from Silke Timmermans, the new Council spokeswoman.

"Silke...?" The director was surprised to find his old flame's name on his extranet mail. Checking the mail if the link was genuine before reading through it, he learned that the Council was buzzing with activity lately, and he should expect to hear from them very soon.

. . .

**_Main Road, New Larkintown City Limits, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0710 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard_**

"You alright there, mate?" Agent Lewis, with his faceplate pulled open, handed over a medkit canister to his commanding officer as he and the rest of the XCOM survivors marched across the countryside on foot towards Shanxi's capital. "There's a red spot on your neck protector - maybe your wound's just opened up again."

The colonel previously ordered his men to follow the length of the road they have reached some time earlier, seeing that in doing so, they'd easily reach the outskirts of New Larkintown. On the way, Shepard and his men had to constantly endure the sweltering heat of the humid climate, and the rather uneven countryside. The deaths of many of his fellow agents and the prospect of facing the first alien incursion on human soil in centuries weighed heavily on the colonel's mind.

So much so, that he never noticed his throat was bleeding.

"It's just a little bit of blood, Lewis. It'll heal." Shepard said, shaking his head. A separatist terror attack in the Spanish province of Girona only a month prior left Shepard with a life-threatening throat wound when one of the ballistics-wielding terrorists caught him unaware, on shore-leave and without his powered armor. The colonel endured having his neck penetrated by an incendiary bullet, which had the unintended side-effect of cauterizing his wound and preventing him from dying from blood loss.

The attack should've killed him, but the best in medical equipment, personnel and supplies at mankind's disposal was enough to bring Shepard back to fighting strength in a matter of weeks.

"Stubborn just like Isaacs." Lewis retracted the canister. "Well, it ain't gonna be _my_ fault if you suddenly keel over dead from blood loss, heh." His expression then suddenly turned serious, just as he pulled up his faceplate. "But seriously, you think you're gonna be alright? That spot's looking pretty bad."

"There are much worse things we could worry about right now over a small red stain on my neck." Shepard responded, somewhat harshly. He took note of a warning his forward observers sent him, displayed over his helmet's built-in HUD. Already, the rural environment started to clash with the pre-fabs and shuttles they started to come across every once and a while.

"Sure, sure. I wouldn't argue with my commanding officer if I could help it, but if by some stroke of misfortune that you, well... _die_," Lewis looked at Shepard straight in the eyes, then smirked. "Can I go out with Karlotte?"

Shepard rolled his eyes and wisely chose to refrain from responding to Lewis' inquiry. Things were about to take a radical turn with his life, if Karlotte's suspicions were proven right. "Heads up, we'll be coming up on a fortified Federal position; four hundred meters up ahead, three hundred hunkered-down contacts with minimal MEC trooper and medium armor support."

Lewis did a quick check on his gear, then closed his faceplate shut. "Okay, I'll ask again: you sure about this, Shepard?" His warbling, helmet-filtered voice sounded out rather harshly. "There's a chance they might find out who we work for, and it'll be on our arses. Dunno 'bout you, but I'd rather stay on the Council's good side."

"We don't have much of a choice." Shepard said, sounding strangely nonchalant and resigned to his situation.

"Hey! Hey." A woman's accented voice came through the comms. "This is Colonel Thierfelder, is Colonel Shepard in this channel?"

Lewis would've responded first, but Shepard was quicker. "Yeah, I'm here. What's your status?"

There was a pause, and the colonel on the other side of the channel could be heard sighing in relief. "Jonathan, thank God you're alive. My scouts spotted your soldiers advancing east of our position, and we're heading our way towards you now. We'll be with you in fifteen minutes, at the least."

"Solid copy, Karlotte. We'll stay on overwatch until you regroup with us. Be advised, in all likeliness, the Federal garrison doesn't think we're friendly," The colonel warned. "If you come across an infantry patrol and they attacked, do _not_ retaliate. We didn't get assigned to this planet to kill humans this time around."

Shepard closed comms, looking at the towering spires of New Larkintown up ahead. Soon, they'd reach the city proper. "It's about time XCOM started fulfilling its true purpose."

. . .

**_New Larkintown Outskirts, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0730 hours_**

**_General Williams_**

"Check your charges and weapon settings! Clean your sights! Fix powered-bayonets!" One of the few officers in the colony with actual combat experience shouted and screamed as his subordinates scurried around the hastily-made entrenched position they put together just minutes ago. "Ready yourselves, men! We're about to make contact! Do what you're told, and you _may_ make it out alive!"

Williams shook his head and frowned as he observed the men he was saddled with at the time being. Even to an untrained eye, it was very clear that they were never trained to deal with anything more severe than pirates, hostile wildlife and the occasional EXALT attack.

The general, who was inside the cockpit of his personalized, custom-built Juggernaut-pattern mechanical exoskeleton cybersuit, shifted on his side and looked down at his adjutant. "Lieutenant, when are proper soldiers gonna arrive to relieve these poor excuses for marines?" His voice was made clearer and more intimidating when filtered through the cybersuit's external speakers.

"Supervisor van Hoff contacted Admiral Al-Aziz only ten minutes ago, general. Our reinforcements are set to arrive in fifteen minutes." The adjutant reported, sounding just a tad unsure.

"Goddammit. I told her to contact the admiral almost an hour ago!" Williams made an irritated sound, his cybersuit fidgeting slightly at his erratic movements inside the cockpit.

Calming himself in short order, the general pointed at the three other MEC units in the colony. "Form up on me, maggots!" He and his fellow cybersuited soldiers started to trudge forwards, to the front of the position. "We'll hold this position, or die trying!"

Williams wasn't met with a resolute cheer from his men, as he observed while moving past their positions. He couldn't find it in himself to blame them, however. Most of them ran farms and businesses somewhere in the colony, hardly were they proper substitutes for Federal marines, who were trained to hold the line and happily die on the Federation's behalf. It didn't help that the current odds were grim.

"Grim indeed..." The general muttered, examining the mass of enemy contacts approaching from the direction of the main road.

The cadenced marching of a thousand power-armored boots were felt through the slight trembling of the ground, and joining this were the intermittent quakes that came from the thick, Ilyshunite-plated legs of the enemy sectopods and MEC troopers. Looking at the unknown soldiers even further with the help of his particle cannon scope, Williams was surprised to find the extremely high quality finish of the powered exoframes the most of the contacts wore for armor. Most disconcertingly, a disturbing amount of these exoframe-suited men possessed purple emblems proudly displayed over their left pauldrons, making their status as combat psionics obvious.

"...Hold on just one goddamn minute," He muttered to himself again. "These boys can't be EXALT... there's just no way they could-"

"General Malcolm Williams."

"Gah, FUCK!" Williams jolted, nearly toppling himself over when a voice addressed him from the Federal Navy's private comms. Clutching a gauntleted hand over his heart, the general hauled his cybersuited form up to his feet.

Enraged at how he nearly suffered a heart attack, he screamed into the radio, "Just who the _fuck_ are you?! Identify yourself, right this goddamn instant!"

"Calm down, general." The man's growly voice, which had a certain 'Dutch' quality to it, spoke without emotion nor inflection. "We need you to cooperate with us."

"Wrong answer, maggot! How the hell did you find this channel?!" The general ignored the man's words, too high on adrenaline to even understand what he just said. "You're illegally accessing Federal Navy property! I'll have your deadbeat ass locked up in Folsom II until the wardens think you're too old and weak even for retirement!"

A scoff was made on the other line. "Your dossier states that you developed a severe temper problem later in your career, as a result of a family tragedy. Now, I can honestly say I'm surprised to find Federal Navy dossiers to be perfectly correct, for once." The man on the other side continued, he was starting to sound a little impatient.

"Listen close, general. I work for the Federation government just like you. However, I answer to a higher authority than the Federal Navy, and it'd be very wise if you were to heed my instructions. Are my words made clear, General Williams?"

Williams steadied his breathing and relaxed on his seat, letting his blood cool down. The man knew a little too much about his personal life.

After nearly a full minute, the general responded, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"You'll learn soon enough who we are, but first, let me enlighten you of our situation. In all likelihood, in a few days' time, we predict that this colony would be facing a much greater threat than the sporadic pirate and EXALT raids; you might have an extraterrestrial invasion in your hands, Williams." The man said, and Williams scoffed derisively, thinking his predictions ridiculous. His patience for the man started wearing thin again.

"My employers sent an observation force to this system's mass relay, to investigate why it started activating itself without any known Federation-aligned ships even remotely close to it." The voice stated. "Once we approached a close enough distance to the relay, we were suddenly ambushed by unknown vessels, destroying a large part of our flotilla and forcing the survivors to land here, in Shanxi. In essence, we committed an attack on their race by defending ourselves, and it's not too unlikely that they'd respond by assembling an invasion fleet, with an attack on Shanxi in mind."

_He's a government spook then, _Williams thoughts resounded. "Okay jackass, I'll let you have the _naive_ belief that I don't think you're flat-out lying! You were attacked by ethereals-"

"No, general. These vessels do not identify as Advent-made." The man corrected. "These vessels belong to an entirely different extraterrestrial race-"

"Does it matter what color or how many tentacles these goddamn things have?" Williams angrily cut the man off. "Like I said, you were attacked, you made an emergency landing in Hoxha, and then you came to me to ask for my help for when whatever-the-fuck ambushed you comes back with an army to try and finish you off. Is that the gist of it?"

A moderate pause. "You put it rather crudely, but that's right. We're on the same side here, and I'm not against attaching my forces to your garrison and letting your men borrow our equipment if it meant repelling an incoming assault on this colony. What do you say, general, do we have a deal?"

Williams didn't believe the man one tiny bit. He didn't even realize that his anger significantly clouded his judgement. "And if I told you to fuck off?"

There was a patronizing chuckle from the other line. "Then we'll turn around, hunker down somewhere hidden, and let _you_ deal with the alien invasion fleet... _alone_."

"You'd willingly let this colony fall while ducking in some shitty crevice with thumbs firmly planted up your asses?" Williams poured every amount of vitriol he could muster into his voice. "I don't think you _really_ work for the government."

"Oh, but we do, Williams. Once the local garrison surrenders with you either dead or in a POW camp, we'd conduct a planet-wide guerrilla war against the alien occupying force until either the Federation retakes the planet, or we get wiped out to the last man. We won't waste our lives trying to defend a city with a hotheaded general refusing to cooperate with us." There was another pause, and Williams had just started to realize the repercussions of trying to defend New Larkintown with an inexperienced garrison against a full-fledged alien invasion.

"I ask for one final time, general. Will you cooperate with us and live, or will you refuse our offer and die?" The man offered his ultimatum. "You'll be remembered as a hero either way, but if you accept our offer, you might even live to benefit from your new reputation. Heh, _unless_ you surrender, that is. My employers make _excellent_ propaganda; they'll have you branded as the worst kind of coward in the eyes of every citizen of the Federation if they think it's necessary."

One of the most difficult things Williams had ever done in his life was to swallow his pride and accept the man's offer that day. "When you put in that way, it doesn't look like I've got much of a choice, do I? I'll have the men mark you as friendly, but DON'T try to pull a fast one on us while our backs are turned!"

He sucked in a breath and started speaking faster than the man on the other line could respond. "Have your soldiers report to the mustering grounds and have them prepare my garrison as best as they could before your 'invasion fleet' arrives. I can't believe those paper-shuffling morons assigned such _pathetic_ excuses for marines to defend the biggest colony outside the core worlds!"

Williams paused for breath again, and the man stayed silent. "As for you, I want you to report to the New Larkintown city hall later this day - you've got a lot of explaining to do, spook. I want you to tell me what sort of gear and vehicles are you bringing into the table, and just how do you expect to beat back a goddamn extraterrestrial attack. More importantly, I want to know _who _you are, and what kind of pimped-up, overfunded, 'highly-classified' organization do you work for! _Dismissed!_" With that said, the general quickly cut comms.

. . .

**_New Larkintown Outskirts, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0830 hours_**

**_General Williams_**

Almost every soldier, reservist or colonist present, were rooted frozen in place as they stared at the newcomers in exoframes while they passed by their position, into the city proper. The men expected to defend their colony from these unknown soldiers, but were very relieved to hear that they came in peace.

Faceless troopers in towering, all-encompassing Ilyushinite armor ignored the stares and awed looks they were being given, completely occupied with marching towards the inner portion of New Larkintown. Sectopods and MEC troopers stomped along the streets with their comrades-in-arms, occasionally having to stop and let civilians and Federal infantry move out of their way, and all the while, Lotus cyberdiscs hovered above the buildings in pairs, patrolling the city airspace for anything that may pose a security risk.

Of course, any feelings of security and relief that the men may have had earlier were immediately dispelled when General Williams started speaking.

"Men! You are not to attack these government spooks! For all intents and purposes, they're our allies now!" The general declared atop an elevated position, still piloting his MEC. "They're here as our _reinforcements_! They came to help us fortify our position against an incoming _alien assault_, so don't throw a party just yet! We haven't crossed even the street!"

The soldiers were shocked to hear the news, and some were quick to voice out their displeasure and dismay. After more than a century without a single extraterrestrial encounter, hostile aliens have come to disrupt the tentative peace mankind had been enjoying once more. Already, there was talk of desertion among the volunteers, and what's worse, they don't even appear to be bothered discussing their plans within Williams' earshot, which was something that made the general sick to his stomach. These milksops neither possessed discipline, nor respect.

"Quit that bellyaching and cut that cowardly talk, I'll have none of that in MY army!" Williams bellowed at the top of his lungs, his already impressive shouting voice significantly amplified by his suit's speakers. "Wouldn't you boys and girls rather kill x-rays instead your fellow men for a change? Isn't the alien's complete destruction the very essence of what makes a true soldier of the Federation? The Federal Navy's original purpose is to defend mankind from any alien threats, and by God, each and every one of you maggots will _relish_ the chance to serve your original purpose either this day, or the next one! Death to the alien!"

"That's right, death to the alien! Haha!" A group of reservists raised their weapons in the air and started pumping their fists in approval, though they were met with blank stares and bemused head-shaking, it was clear from their upright stances and bright faces that they were more than eager to pitch in.

Williams shifted to his side, the servos in his suit whirring with each slight movement. "Well finally! _Someone _in this pathetic little backwater colony possessing even a little bit of backbone and enthusiasm! Keep that attitude up, and your future will be most assuredly bright - if you survive, that is!"

The old general then turned to the vast majority of the colonial volunteers. "As for the rest of you weak-minded codpiece-fondling doubters, mark me well: embracing your role within the coming days will be your first step to fame and recognition in the eyes of your fellow citizens, and goddamn _redemption _in _my _eyes! The aliens have come for us again, and I won't be tolerating any doubters in _this_ army! More so than ever before, the president needs your complete trust and faith in his decisions - put aside your hesitation and fear, there isn't any more room for that weak, childish shit anymore!"

More men started cheering, with some marines among them. "For the president! Kill the alien!" They chanted like a mantra as more and more of the crowd slowly started to see things Williams' way.

"We'll show those probing fucks the what-for so hard, they'll think twice about crossing us ever again!" Williams joined in, giving the ground an earthshaking stomp with his MEC's metal foot, as the once-meek hodgepodge of armed colonists and Federal marines were whipped into a frenzy. "History will remember us as heroes, men! This colony's triumphant defense will be our legacy!"

The general grinned as the vast majority of his men cheered themselves hoarse. He didn't expect to say so little to awaken the inner xenophobe in his men, but he preferred it that way; his throat was just about to fail him. After discharging an extended burst from his gauss gun into the air to silence the crowd, he started speaking in a more subdued manner... though it would still qualify as shouting to most men.

"Now, I know now that you're aching to kill aliens as much as I do, but the difference between me and the lot of you is that I'm _trained_ properly to kill as many of these things as I damn well please. I won't make the most use of your abilities if you don't even know how to use them well!"

Williams started pointing at those in the crowd without uniform, which was most of the men.

"Any man or woman here that admits to not having been to boot camp yet, then good for you! You have the courage to let us know that you'll be a _liability_ when shit hits the fan! Now, if you don't want to let your comrades down and _stop_ being a liability, then you need to report to the mustering grounds to submit to immediate Federal infantry training!" The general ordered.

If the aliens did manage to arrive in Shanxi, Williams hoped to have an army of fearless zealots at his disposal, but he had no use for an army of _untrained_ zealots, no matter how fearless.

"You will be trained by our new allies, and you will be given weapons and equipment that most of the Federal Navy aren't even allowed to have! Make the best of this rare opportunity; earn the right to be called a _real_ marine! Have my made myself clear enough to you maggots?!"

Each and every one of them shouted at the top of their lungs: "_Loud and clear, __sir!_"

. . .

**_Main Office, New Larkintown City Hall, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 0920 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard, Colonel Thierfelder_**

The two colonels never bothered knocking on the door as they entered Supervisor van Hoff's office side by side. General Williams, his adjutant, van Hoff and her two Preserver bodyguards were there, waiting.

"An inspiring speech, general. Truly, no one else could inspire such hatred amongst men better than you do." Were the first, rather sarcastic words out of Shepard's mouth. Even with a helmet to cover his face, the general instantly recognized his voice.

"I used to watch a lot of vids," The general responded, with some mirth. "Very little of that was my own invention, I admit."

Karlotte laughed and retracted her faceplate. "Be proud of it! Jon and I were there when you went about shouting and screaming... I think my ears have blisters now."

Williams shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah, maybe _some_ of it was my invention..."

Of course, he was unaware of the psionic suggestions Karlotte was continuously implanting into his mind, soothing his infamously fiery temper and making him susceptible to banter. She would've flat-out assumed control of his mind so that precious time was saved, but his will was too strong even for a man in his late nineties.

"Shall we get down to business?" Shepard was quick to progress the situation, though. "We have much to discuss."

The general nodded, adopting a stoic expression. "Right, of course. Lieutenant, you need to leave us for a while. Maddie, this discussion's between me and the spooks. You and your bodyguards need to leave, too."

"On the contrary, I'm more than welcome to this discussion," Van Hoff coolly responded. "Griggs and Sheckley, on the other hand, may leave the office."

As the adjutant and the two Preservers vacated the room, and before Williams could ask, Shepard informed him, "Colonial Supervisor Madeline van Hoff is one of our organization's main contacts and informers in the Heilong Cluster, general. She answers directly to our project director."

It was Williams' turn to be stunned. "...right. Then I think it's about time you tell the only non-spook in this room what agency do you clowns work for, exactly. Was it CAT6 or the PALADIN Conclave? The Slavyane? Maybe Westwatch? I'm guessing it's Westwatch, am I right?"

Shepard and Karlotte spared each other a brief look. Van Hoff started chuckling as she fished out a peculiar pentagonal emblem from her desk, sliding it over to Williams.

The general picked up the item and slowly brought it up to his face. He somewhat recognized the patterns on the emblem, but he couldn't quite place it. It's so familiar, yet so foreign. The Latin words emblazoned on it, "Vigilo Confido", only served to dumbfound him even further.

"CAT6 is a ruthless PMC group that so far, has shown no problems with recruiting from the mentally insane. And the PALADIN Conclave doesn't even have an armed force and is exclusively for the Federation's best and brightest scientists and engineers," Karlotte stated rather matter-of-factly, before she wryly smirked, "Without moronic things such as 'ethics' and 'morality' weighing them down, of course. Pretty standard for top-secret Federation-funded organizations, really."

"The Slavyane only take recruits from colonies with Eastern European-descended populations and exclusively speak a modified version of the Russian language, and Westwatch is an elite biowarfare and intelligence-gathering division dating back from the 21st century that, unlike CAT6, recruits from war criminals and reformed EXALT personnel instead." Shepard gave a quick lesson on the hidden forces operating within the Federation government, much to General Williams' astonishment. So many things were kept hidden by the government, even to high-ranking Federal Navy personnel such as him.

"The Slavyane don't seem _too_ bad, until you learn that they also have close ties to organized crime and they engage in the drug trade for extra profits." Karlotte was quick to add. "Ah, well. Nobody's perfect."

"Hm. So... which dysfunctional group of scum do you take your rookies from?" Williams sarcastically inquired, though he wouldn't be surprised if every government-sanctioned spook-circus recruited solely from scum. They tend to be that way.

"It's not important where we get our agents from, only that they prove to be the best at what they do, and they're drilled to be exceedingly loyal to our cause." Colonel Thierfelder said. "But really, we only take recruits from outside our group on rare occasions. Most of us were born into the organization."

"And as for our expertise, we specialize in defending humanity from extraterrestrial threats, much like the Federal Navy." Colonel Shepard brought up his omni-tool, bringing up an old motivational reel of four iconic XCOM agents in action: Ferdinand Schultz, Annette Durand, Shaojie Zhang and ex-UN rep Peter van Dorn.

Working fluidly with one another, the quartet of agents maneuvered a maze of wreckage and rubble in a ruined Luxembourgian town. They eventually encountered and swiftly dispatched an entire platoon of mutons, floaters and a berserker through the use of psionics and precise laser fire. With less than thirty seconds to spare, the four-man team narrowly secured their objective by defusing a plasma bomb, with only three seconds left in the timer.

"Not bad," Williams nodded, seemingly impressed. "If that wasn't such an obvious piece of edited-propaganda-bullshit-footage, I'd put these clowns up for a medal."

The colonel ignored the general's comment. "However, unlike the Navy, we are better trained, better funded and better equipped. Our organization also prides itself for being responsible for the defeat and repulsion of the Outsiders in the late 20th century, and the success of Earth's defence against the ethereal collective in the early 21st century."

During his days as a lower-ranking officer, Williams remembered hearing about a conspiracy theory about how a shadowy, highly-advanced alien-hunting organization was the sole reason that Earth remained in human hands, but like any sane person would, he scoffed at the claims.

"Believe me, our predecessors have done a lot to ensure that mankind stood strong like it is today, but to better serve our people and to avoid answering for our more questionable actions, we thought it best if we stayed working in the shadows." Karlotte took out her own emblem from a compartment built into her exoframe, displaying the different engravings on the back.

"No offence, but I think every word that came out of your mouths after you went through that door was just plain _ridiculous_..." Williams admitted, chuckling briefly. Shepard merely folded his armored arms while Karlotte gave him an 'I told you so' look.

"But I'll be honest with you, I couldn't care less who you two work for, really. That was just curiosity on my part." He said, sliding the emblem back to van Hoff. "What I really wanted from you, is a favor."

The general inhaled a lungful before mustering the courage to speak up. "I need you two to eventually assume command over my men, if this invasion of yours ever manifested. I believe my time as a general has come to an end, and that I'll be of better use as a MEC pilot."

Shepard and Karlotte were surprised, to say the least. Convincing Williams to relinquish control of his forces had been one of their hidden objectives, as they have been aware that his grasp on unit tactics and strategem had begun to fade with age, made worse by his increasing susceptibleness to bouts of extreme anger. On the other hand, his skill with piloting MECs and sectopods was a thing to behold, as his dossier states.

"That... can be arranged, general." Shepard composed himself quickly. He spared a cursory, inquiring look at his fellow colonel, who narrowed her eyes and shook her head in negative. She hasn't done anything to manipulate the general's decision-making.

"Well, now that this business is settled, why don't we start discussing our new toys, then?" Williams let his eyes linger on the agents' XCOM-issue plasma rifles, to accentuate his point.

"Ah, but this isn't the place to discuss _that_." Karlotte started, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "We used to have a branch here in Shanxi, but we have to abandon it after an accident with the elerium reactors and a shipment of thin man gas grenades. I heard there's still plenty of weapons and experimental tech left behind there."

Shepard nodded. "And it's only two-hundred klicks from where we are. If we act now, we can reach it within in an hour and have the leftover gear hauled over to the city by the end of the day. By then, Lewis and the others should have the colonists in a better fighting shape."

. . .

**_New Larkintown Federal Garrison Mustering Grounds, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 1740 hours_**

**_Field Agent Second Class Henry 'Postman' Lewis - senior XCOM agent_**

"A good day's work, lads! Well done." Lewis gave a gauntlet-covered thumbs-up to the assembled colonial troopers in front of him. His fellow agents were at a similar situation, wrapping up training their own batch of volunteers and reservists.

"I say, color me fuckin' surprised! You came here ranting and raving like a buncha separatist protestors in front of the prime minister's winter residence, but you came out as a passable unit of infantry! An impressive effort, but not good enough to make it as a proper replacement for a marine battalion, I'm sorry to say. What, you didn't _really_ expect to finish boot camp in one day, did you?" The agent jokingly inquired.

Lewis waved them off. "Get some shut eye, the lot of ya! We'll continue where we left off tomorrow, if you still have the guts for more, that is."

The makeshift soldiers saluted their impromptu trainer and drillmaster before dispersing, either to return to their pre-fabs or to the nearby barracks. Lewis stayed for a while, lighting a cigarette and enjoying the cold afternoon breeze on his uncovered face.

Looking up at New Larkintown's towering spires glistening in the fading red-orange sunlight with the nearby snow-peaked mountains in the background was indeed a breathtaking sight. Lewis didn't have to think twice about defending the colony with his life, if need be.

The agent spent a bit of time pondering about what to do next. Still in his armor sans the helmet, Lewis decided to turn around and head back to the barracks to check his gear and calibrate all the guns he kept, like some of his fellow agents just did.

While he would've gone off into the city to have a drink like most of the agents, Lewis thought that he should stay sober for the time being. After all, with the two colonels, the general and a whole convoy of trucks and shuttles out of the city hauling abandoned XCOM gear, Lewis was practically the highest-ranking officer in the city.

If an incident occurs, it'll be up to him to coordinate his fellow agents and the Federal garrison to resolve the situation. Besides, it's been a long time since his alloy cannon was tweaked; he was more than a little curious to see the effects of unloading an accelerated blast of machined Ilyushinite shards onto an alien's face.

"H-hello, um, excuse me, Agent Henry?" Lewis turned to his side, coming upon the sight of a Federal marine, looking shyly up at him.

"Good afternoon, ma'am! How can yours truly help you out?" He inquired smoothly, but he was cautious to any hidden plots against him.

"Well... I, uh..." The marine, an overcoat-clad, tan-skinned woman in her late twenties with curled locks of black hair and dark green eyes, struggled to start speaking. She nervously wrung her hands together. "Can we... perhaps... speak somewhere more _private_?" Lewis took careful note of the small purple badge she wore over her chest, signifying her status as a Category Beta Minus psionic.

The agent found himself amused at her coy display as he took note of her South European features. "Ah, no thanks ma'am. 'Preciate the offer, but unauthorized fraternization outside the organization is strictly forbidden. A shame, really. I kinda like Italians girls," He winked at her, thinking himself the epitome of smoothness. "And I heard psionics have some... interesting _applications_ when used in a certain way..."

The woman appeared completely taken by surprise. "W-what? Oh, _oh_! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to come across like that, it's just that-" She covered a part of her face with a palm. Lewis chuckled. "Sorry, I guess I just wanted to ask which agency do you belong, so that I know who we would be working with."

She extended a gloved hand to Lewis. "Junior Operative Nicoletta Petrucci, from Covert Activities and Reconnaissance Division. I heard there was a contingent of government black-ops agents stranded in New Larkintown, after being ambushed by an apparent extraterrestrial attack."

"Well, why didn't you bloody say so, and why were you so nervous back then?" The agent smiled and shook hands with the Federal spy, remembering from the previous mission briefing that personnel from CARD may have been stationed in Shanxi. "Usual days, I wouldn't be able to tell you who we are, but CARD knows we exist and what we're supposed to be, anyways. Me and the lads serve under XCOM, lady."

Operative Petrucci cautiously looked around her surroundings briefly. "You know Henry, we shouldn't really be discussing this here..." She leaned in as she told him, her eyes narrowed. Then, she pulled immediately back. "Ah, but what the hell. I was a little afraid that you and your colleagues might be working for Westwatch, but you don't seem too unstable and bloodthirsty. Well, _yet_."

"_Westwatch_? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised you thought that way," Lewis said, frowning. "We dress like them and have the same level of tech most of the time, but we have more issues about secrecy than that psychopathic lot, and we're a lot less trigger-happy."

"Yeah, a circus act full of arseholes, they are." Nicoletta snorted in disdain. "I heard they pistol-whipped one of my colleagues for trying to speak with them. I was worried that would happen to me when I approached you."

"Nah, I wouldn't do that." Lewis shook his head and grinned. "I wouldn't want to ruin your..."

The agent trailed off and stood still like a deer confronted by headlights when he came upon the dreaded sight of a darkened squadron of unidentified shuttles and aircraft zooming past the horizon, just some distance away from the city outskirts, but too far away for the cyberdisks to make pursuit.

"Jesus Christ, did you see that!" Far from being calm and gesturing wildly at the white trails the alien craft left behind, Lewis questioned Nicoletta. "Was I the only one who fucking saw that? That seemed so bloody real!"

The spy took hold of the agent's armoured shoulders, and with surprising strength, shook him back to sense. "Hey, hey! I saw them, Henry! Those birds aren't ours, that's for sure!"

Lewis paused to think of the next course of action. "Holy hell, this is bad. I'm calling Shepard and Karlotte now, but we need to be ready for unwelcome guests until they arrive. Come on!" With Nicoletta in tow, he started running to the barracks to retrieve his equipment.

"Any mates of yours coming to help us out, or is it just you in this colony?" The agent inquired as they entered the building.

Nicoletta brought up an omni-tool, which displayed a small countdown. "A lot of friends, actually. I'm counting on a small CARD flotilla to come and attach itself to Admiral Al-Aziz's ships, and my fellow agents in Shanxi are on their way to New Larkintown to provide ground support as we speak." The two agents passed by several Federal soldiers in the barracks, and Lewis was quick to alert them about the situation. "I hope they're enough!"

"All help's welcome!" Lewis said, taking his Ilyushinite shotgun from a gun rack in his quarters. "I got what I need, now we just need to assemble the New Larkintown welcoming committee. Let's up and make the aliens feel _right_ at home, shall we?"

. . .

**_Situation Room, Level 32, Schultz Moonbase_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 1745 hours_**

**_Central Officer Janet Deckardson, AKA 'Central'_**

"Sir..." Deckardson nervously began to an expectant Director Faust. "I've got terrible news. You might wanna take a look at this." She inputted commands on her omni-tool, and in a second, the massive holoscreen dominating most of the situation room started to transmit the middle of a Federation emergency broadcast.

"-pouring through as early as yesterday, several eye-witness accounts of an unknown military flotilla being decimated by what appears to be a collection of vessels of extraterrestrial origin and make, near the vicinity of the Shanxi-Theta Relay, in the Heilong Cluster," A veteran news anchor reported, disbelief and bafflement written plainly on his expressions.

"Some of these witnesses even went so far as to provide us with video evidence of this attack on the unidentified human vessels, which were speculated to be from a shadowy, government-funded paramilitary organization calling itself Westwatch." The anchor continued. "Most of these vids were proven false, however, and there has been no evidence as of yet to suggest that Westwatch actually exists."

The anchor paused to take a sip from glass of water sitting on his desk. "In response to this apparent threat of extraterrestrial attack, President Lazarenko issued a declaration early this morning, calling for several fleets to report to the Heilong Cluster and all systems nearby. Admiral Norman Draynor, commander of the FNWS _Annihilation_, was among those ordered to defend the colony of Shanxi from any alien attacks. More on this story as the situation devel-"

Deckardson cut the feed, coming across the sight of Director Faust in the process of crushing his cigar between his teeth. "Commander, as it turns out, I'm _not_ being paranoid this time," She said, her voice struggling to stay calm. "Captain Granger might be already dead, for all we know."

Faust gave one last look of disbelief at the empty holoscreen before storming off, out of the situation room.

He placed his index and middle finger atop the comm bead sitting on his ear. "All Schultz base field personnel, this is Director Tyrone Faust! Disregard all previous directives and assemble at galaxy room! I repeat, all field personnel must report to the galaxy room _immediately!_"

As he exited the room, he was immediately flanked by two MEC troopers, appearing practically giddy at what their leader was about to say.

"Reset the goddamn clock! The XCOM Initiative is back online!"

**. . .**

**_Heavy Fabrication Bay and Hangar, Level 4, XCOM Shanxi Branch_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 1750 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard, Colonel Thierfelder_**

Shepard, with his helmet keeping him from being poisoned by lingering thin man gas, observed quietly as Karlotte introduced the gas-masked General Williams to the prototype battlefield device still attached to its rack, with dusty cables and computers strewn all over the area.

Left behind to corrode and waste away, a MEC-sized powered maul designed for engaging in close quarters combat and on-the-field demolitions remained hooked up to its frame, but thanks to the myriad countermeasures by departing XCOM engineers and operators, the weapon remained in an almost pristine condition, fit to be worked on where the previous science team left behind.

"A thing of beauty, isn't it?" Karlotte traced a metal finger on the maul's handle, uncaring of the thick layer of dust blanketing it. "It's been proven that the S-HC 41a 'Deconstructor' Powered Sledge is fully capable of putting a Federation sectopod out of commission with just one good blow anywhere near the cockpit or the engine area."

"That's the best I heard from you spooks all day," Williams rubbed his gloved hands together, dreaming of the amount of destruction he could sow with the weapon in his possession. "But the damn thing's no use to us wasting away in here. I'll have the grease monkeys haul this onto an excavator in a moment."

The general looked around the interiors of the base. After spending several hours emptying XCOM Shanxi of all its weapons and other useful tech, Williams had to squint to find any more useful items his men could use. "Looks like we've cleared this level. We should be heading back to the city and start planning out our defence."

"Ah, but general, you haven't even seen the last piece of hardware hidden in this level, yet." Shepard said. He was standing over an unpowered console, with very large, decayed shutter doors behind him.

Williams and Karlotte walked over to the colonel. "Got something for us there?" The general queried.

"What's that, Jon? I didn't find that in the base's equipment manifest." The other colonel inquired.

Shepard shrugged his armoured shoulders. "I spent a few months stationed here in '39. I got close to the fabrication team's principal engineer and he let me in on a little secret side-project he and his team were working on." With that said, the colonel commanded the shutters to open.

Karlotte took a step back upon seeing what Shepard was referring to.

"Holy Mary, mother of Jesus..." Williams, however, slowly took several steps forwards. "You crazy bastards, you did it! We've already won this war before it even started!"

The 'side-project' appeared to be an upscaled, heavily modified version of an XCOM Crusader sectopod, with a myriad more plasma weapons and missile racks mounted on every part of the chassis, a prototypal, miniaturized version of the Godfinger supercooled fusion lance with an underslung Penumbra laser repeater cannon as the main gun, and a much larger cockpit area.

Shepard was less than impressed at the machine, however. "The Devastator sectopod might look formidable enough, but it's an archetypal glass cannon; because of the lack of proper funding for the project, the fabricators have to provide the vehicle with a thinner layer of Ilyushinite plate armor. A few good hits to any major part of the sectopod with a plasma sniper rifle will disable it for a very long while, and field repairs are made much more complicated with this machine."

"This thing's _massive_. It looks like a cybersuit could fit in that cockpit." Karlotte absently noted, to Williams' glee.

"Hell yes, it could! I'm calling for more excavators ASAP!" The general quickly left the two colonels to themselves, disappearing into an elevator.

"Never thought I'd see him happy for once," The colonel said, closing the shutters.

Karlotte grinned behind her helmet. "Well, good for him. He probably just added two years to his lifespan."

"I don't think he'd like that," Shepard walked close to his partner. "Read his dossier? He's trying to kill himself, I think. Join his wife on the other side."

"Well, would you be so dedicated to follow me if I took a hit that I won't be coming back from?" Suddenly, she threw him a serious question, catching him off-guard.

Shepard stood silent for a while. "Always remember, Karlotte, if you die... I won't have anything much to live for anymore." He turned his back to her. "Just ask me, and I'll get it done."

"You know I wouldn't tell you to do anything like that, Jonathan." Karlotte moved herself closer to Shepard, who turned back to her. "Besides, you _do_ have plenty to live for. You have Dr. Isaacs, our squad, the Rashad Base personnel... mankind... and our child."

The colonel's heart missed a beat.

"Results came in two months ago, but I'm afraid to tell you," Karlotte sounded ashamed, folding her arms insecurely. "I guess I was just-"

Shepard took hold of her shoulders, silencing her. "Not another word out of you, Karlotte."

He embraced her, a gesture that she took a little time to return. They were still in armor, and they knew that the planet was going to be embroiled in conflict in the next few days, but none of it mattered to them now. It was the start of a family for them.

"SHEPARD!" The colonel's omni-tool suddenly received a transmission from Lewis, and he was forced to look into the problem with one hand. "You lovebirds seriously need to get back here, now!"

Lewis quickly noticed the one arm Shepard kept around Karlotte's waist. "Oh, that's just _great_!" He went from frantic and alarmed in one second, to flushed and embarrassed in another. "Look, guys, I'm sorry I ruined a bloody moment, but we're having a much more pressing issue out here back in town! ET flyers have just landed some distance away from the city limits minutes ago, and the radar started registering unidentified blips on approach!"

"Perfect timing," Karlotte quipped, "Hold the fort until we arrive, Henry. We'll haul out the rest of the gear tomorrow."

"Sure, no rush!" Lewis cocked his alloy cannon. "Oh, and CARD operatives came by and told us they came to help, with more of them on the way. I'll see you guys either in a few hours back in town, or with Schultz in the Temple Ship. Agent Lewis, out." The transmission was cut.

. . .

_**Niruel Sector Grid P-55, Unknown Alien Colony**_

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 1830 hours_**

**_Turian Hierarchy Second Lieutenant Septimus Quiricus - Relay 314 Advance Force I, captain's retinue_**

"Captain, with all due respect," Lieutenant Septimus spoke, as he walked next to his commanding officer. "Our plan's all kinds of stupid. You know this'll never work, and yet you volunteered us to do this anyway. I'm pretty sure we won't even get to understand them and vice-versa."

"This is only a matter of protocol, lieutenant." Captain Silus Resulon said, trying to sound as if he was only following orders. "Citadel law dictates that the Hierarchy should offer our enemies a chance to surrender first. Once negotiations inevitably break down, _then_ we can resort to violence immediately."

Septimus knew better, however. He'd been serving under Silus for three years now, which was enough to show the captain's true colors. Captain Silus was an incompetent, overranked fool who always proved extraordinarily persistent in achieving glory and recognition. He cherished the chance to be the first of the Hierarchy to draw blood against the enemy in a firefight. If anything, this will guarantee that he and the rest of the Resulon family will be mentioned in the early morning news.

In fact, the most probable cause of Silus' rather excessive awards and commendations was due to the Resulon family's well-connected and extremely affluent status, and that Hierarchy Command had very likely gone dangerously complacent after centuries of peace - the higher-ups never once questioned why Silus' mission results were less than stellar for his rank and supposed competence.

Septimus would've been the one in charge of the operation, if it weren't for his more humble origins as a lowly C-Sec officer.

"I still think this is a terrible idea," The lieutenant continued, "Admiral Nandrakan should've smashed through the enemy defence fleet first, then commenced planetary bombardment instead of sending us to go ahead of the vanguard fleet and negotiate with the natives. There's absolutely no guarantee that they won't just attack us either on sight, or after diplomacy fails us."

"You worry too much, lieutenant." Silus adopted a relaxed stance to accentuate his words, holding his assault rifle by the carrying handle. "In all likelihood, we'll be up against savages with low-level tech. We'd probably confuse them with bright lights and loud sounds."

"Spirits," Septimus couldn't help but voice his displeasure at his captain. He cared very little if he was court-martialled at a later date for doubting a superior officer if it meant saving his skin at the present time. "You didn't read the reports? The alien ships were fielding directed energy weapons, captain. If the aliens could manage to mount the damn things on their spaceborne vessels without tearing themselves apart, then there'd be nothing stopping them from giving their troops plasma rifles and such."

Finally, some sense was knocked into Silus, as evidenced by his more wary stance. "Plasma... rifles? But we still have kinetic shielding, don't we?" He started carrying his rifle on his hands, a talon on the trigger.

"Kinetic shields only stop bullets and bullet-type projectiles, captain. Directed energy weapons like plasma and lasers are a no-go." A sergeant piped in from the back. "So in essence, we're at a major disadvantage."

"What he means to say, is that we're fucking _screwed _here, sir." Septimus hammered down on the captain's already plummeting morale mercilessly. "We should just turn around already, then just tell the admiral that negotiations failed. It's safer that way."

Silus struggled internally to make a decision. The aliens were a formidable threat with plasma weapons, but before he left Palaven to serve, his father told him to only return with the condition that he achieve a significant feat in the Resulon clan's name. If he disobeyed, he will then be disinherited as a consequence. His loss would mean nothing; His siblings were plenty, each of them more than eager to take his place and succeed where he failed.

"Stand to, men! Alien infantry on approach!" A soldier shouted to his comrades, indicating at the shadowy profiles moving from cover to cover, blending themselves into the urban environment.

Whatever decision Silus was about to take, Septimus knew for a fact that it won't matter now. "Take positions, on the double! We can't take any risks, the negotiations are off!"

Silus didn't even object to having his men ordered around by a subordinate as he scurried for cover as well, finding shelter behind the walls of a building manufactured from a strange, alien kind of alloy. The structure, despite its foreign architecture, was recognizable enough as a home of a sorts.

A tense standoff occurred between the two sides. The turians expected the aliens to make a move soon, but for some strange reason, they stayed put and out of visual contact. The troopers started talking to one another as they waited amidst the eerie silence, mostly about how the enemy looked like.

Five minutes have passed without incident. Septimus started doubting if there were any alien soldiers at all. Thinking tactically, he thought it wise to remain in cover and keep scanning for foes for longer, just to be safe. Unfortunately for him, Silus thought way ahead of him.

"No hostile contacts! Regroup on me!" The captain slowly emerged out of cover, collapsing his rifle from its combat-ready form. "Let's press on. There's no one here-"

Silus abruptly paused mid-sentence, as if he suddenly realized something.

Septimus poked his head out of cover. "Captain! Get out of the open!" Silus didn't respond, nor move an inch. He just stood there, appearing frozen.

Growing impatient, he called for a fellow soldier. "Private Caius, go and secure the captain for his sake, will you?"

"Aye, lieutenant." The private nodded and quickly vaulted out of cover, putting his shotgun away as he ran straight for the captain.

Upon reaching him, Caius tried to put a gloved hand over Silus' shoulderplate. "Captain, it's not safe out here. We should get back into cover before-"

In a very unexpected move, Silus forcefully smacked away the private's hand and pushed him to the ground. In the time it took for every turian soldier to comprehend what just happened, Silus had de-collapsed his rifle, aimed it at the fallen soldier and unloaded a volley into Private Caius, killing him almost instantly. At such a close range, the soldier's kinetic barriers barely helped keeping his blood inside his own body.

"What the fuck!" Septimus cursed, just as the treasonous captain jumped into cover and started firing at his own men, keeping them down. The lieutenant bared his teeth as he ordered, "Kill that barefaced traitor!"

He always wanted to say that.

A markswoman and her spotter popped out of cover and took aim with their rifles. The first shot from the spotter ripped through Silus' shields, and the second one from the sniper tore a chunk of the captain's side.

Silus, however, didn't even flinch from his wound as he swiftly gunned down one half of the sniper team in retaliation, like a man possessed. Septimus was baffled at the captain's superbly improved marksmanship, but he resolved to prove himself better.

Scooping up the dead sniper's weapon from her lifeless talons, the lieutenant waited for the precise moment Silus' weapon overheated. When that time came, Septimus didn't hesitate to take the shot against his former commanding officer. With one squeeze of the trigger, the mass-accelerated slug found its mark on Silus' left eye.

Septimus felt overwhelming satisfaction in putting Silus down. He vaulted out of cover to check on his kill, but by that time, he completely forgot about the aliens they were looking out for. Before he could reach the captain's corpse, the lieutenant was promptly incapacitated when a wayward, superheated plasma bolt bypassed his shields and seared off most of his right shoulder, followed by another bolt that incinerated a large portion of his left leg.

"Contact, CONTACT! ENEMY ALERT!" A trooper shouted as he watched Septimus drop to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony and clutching at his cauterized shoulder wound.

From his position on the ground, Septimus watched as his soldiers appeared to start engaging unseen alien contacts making a frontal assault. With their most senior-ranking officers down for the count and affected by confusion, the Hierarchy troopers took heavy losses at the initial assault as bright green energy weapons fire destroyed what little cover they have, leaving them out in the open and vulnerable to further attacks.

The lieutenant crawled his way to a nearby waist-high wall, facing the direction of his men. He observed with a terrified expression as he spotted enemy infiltrators emerging out of cloak, in position to strike at his in men's backs. Kinetic shields, the Hierarchical Navy's most relied method of protection for its soldiers, were rendered useless when plasma bolts picked clean through the turian ranks, dropping several of them at a time.

All it took were thirty seconds for the skirmish to conclude. Septimus grimaced in agony at his burns and fear for the Citadel races. The Hierarchy had made a terrible mistake.

One of the last things Septimus ever saw was the last of his men, retreating in panic from the alien soldiers. The turian passed by the lieutenant's writhing form without so much as a second look, only concerned with his own life. He ran past a corner and was suddenly knocked to the ground when an alien soldier ambushed him, bashing its firearm's metallic stock into his face so hard, Septimus heard the sickening _crunch_ that accompanied the blow, followed by the soft _thump_ of the turian's body hitting the ground.

The ambusher alien locked down its foot on its prey's back as he tried to flee. It cocked its gun and shot the horrified turian soldier once, breaking his shields and wounding him severely. The alien seemed to chuckle softly and said something in its tongue, its voice made grating and more terrifying when filtered by its helmet.

Just as Septimus thought he was about to witness another of his kind unceremoniously put down, the alien appeared to take mercy, removing its armored boot from the soldier's back.

The lieutenant was barely conscious as he tried to at least get a good look of the enemy as much as he can. Armored in what appeared to be powered armor painted black with a helmet that resembled an antiquated gas mask, the alien's bulky plate gave it a larger-than-average profile. It also carried what seemed to be a shotgun with parts that resonated a dim orange light, and from what he observed, the gun fired several shards of a thick, metallic substance, shredding the alien's foes after breaking their shields.

Septimus turned his head to his side, and found Silus' corpse there, sans one eye. He weakly smiled before blacking out, satisfied with what he saw.

. . .

**_New Larkintown Outskirts, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 03rd, 2157 - 1840 hours_**

**_Field Agent Lewis_**

"Good _fucking _work!" Lewis congratulated his trainees, who he made extensive use of in the previous battle. "The bastards probably _never_ saw one of their own turning against them!"

"Don't get complacent," Nicoletta thought something wasn't quite right, however. She thought she'd be in for the fight of her life, but the carapaced, avian-like creatures hardly put up a fight when pitted against plasma weapons, trained CARD and XCOM operatives plus her own psionics. "We outnumbered them, surrounded them, have better guns and we got the element of surprise. I'd stay on my feet, if I were you."

Lewis would've laughed the spy off, but he had to acknowledge her. "She's right, we shouldn't let this go to our heads. I'm not saying you didn't do good enough, but we should try and get even better for when more of these bloody, two-legged lizard-birds show up on our doorstep."

"Get back to rest, everyone." The Federal spy told the colonial volunteers. "We'll mind the dead, get them a proper burial."

The colonists immediately dispersed without much commotion, except for three men who took another five minutes to depart from their fallen comrade's corpse. Corporal Blackmoore was one of the four casualties, all of them volunteers.

"What should we do with the captives?" A CARD operative inquired Lewis, who spared a quick glance at the trio of aliens they've captured, one of which the XCOM agent subdued personally.

"Take those tossers over there to a med-bay and have the medics do whatever they can. We can still use them, since they're still in one piece." He said, indicating at two of the aliens. With a grimace, he looked at the third, unconscious one. "But... I'm not so keen on that one. It's already missing two limbs, I don't think it'd last under interrogation."

"How can you interrogate aliens, anyway? They speak an entirely different language from everyone." Nicoletta approached the two men, holstering her smoking plasma pistol. "It's not like that one will give you anything. It'll probably prefer death, now that it's maimed twice over."

Before answering, Lewis pulled out his alloy cannon, walked over to the unconscious alien trooper and mercy-killed it with a single shot to the head fringe, splattering himself with the captive's dark blue blood.

One of the captive aliens, the one still uninjured and conscious, yelled something out in anguish. Nobody batted an eye when a CARD operative promptly silenced it with an arc thrower charge.

"We don't _need_ to talk to them to get what we need. I dunno know much about what Dr. Garamond does to the EXALT agents we do manage to capture, but I heard he sucks out the information straight from their brains and leaves them as empty, brain-dead husks." The XCOM agent walked back to the Federal spy, putting his shotgun away. "The sick fuck tortures them first to get his rocks off, but I only heard rumors."

Nicoletta had heard of Dr. Arthur Garamond the 'Bloody-Handed', as some from CARD's sister agency, the PALADIN Collective, took to calling XCOM's chief researcher. "We don't have interrogation techniques that advanced, but I'm sure Director House wouldn't rely on it if we did."

Lewis actually thought about simply dispatching the captives to spare them of a horrible fate at Schultz base, but then again, they weren't _human_, and they probably wouldn't hesitate to interrogate or torture him if the situations were reversed, as was expected of aliens.

Deciding not to dwell on the thought any longer, Lewis chose to occupy himself with work. "Come on, let's haul these alien corpses into a morgue and retrieve their gear. The lads at R&amp;D would probably have some uses for them."

It wasn't any longer before Shepard, Karlotte and Williams arrived. Lewis and Nicoletta brought them up to speed, and the colonel quickly decided that they should then rest for eight hours before returning to work, planning out a defense.

Unbeknownst to everyone, most of them wouldn't have the satisfaction of getting even six hours of rest.

. . .

**_HWS Indefatigable, 15,000+ kilometers to Unknown Alien Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0115 hours_**

**_Admiral Aureliana 'Lina' Nandrakan - Draius Ferlodinus Legion vanguard leader_**

"We'll be reaching the target world in twenty minutes, ma'am. You have further orders for the fleet?"

Admiral Aureliana, or 'Lina' as close friends and colleagues have taken to calling her, stretched on her seat and yawned. FTL travel, like many things, Had a way of lulling her to sleep. "Stay on the current course. Have the sensor relays picked up any enemy vessels orbiting the planet yet?"

The tech officer seemed to pause. "Here... here's a report from the sensor crew, admiral." Lina warily took the report and started reading it, while the officer continued, "There must've been a mistake, the alien ship profiles can't be _that_ large."

The admiral saw the source of the officer's fears. Though the enemy vessels were vastly outnumbered by the turian vanguard fleet as detailed in the report, each and every one of them was vastly larger than their counterparts in the Hierarchical Navy. An alien cruiser was almost as large as a turian dreadnought, and the sole alien dreadnought stretched almost as far as two turian cruisers welded together by the end.

Still, as history demonstrated time and time again, size and brute force weren't nearly enough to be an effective counter to sound tactics and and a decent strategy.

"Men, I want the entire vanguard to adopt the Stalwart Predator Doctrine," Lina calmly announced to the _Indefatigable_ bridge crew. "We cannot delay; we _must_ achieve the element of surprise if we are to destroy the majority of the enemy defence fleet before they could even retaliate."

The ship's veteran executive officer complied. "All ships, this is the _Indefatigable _speaking. We are about to engage the enemy; Navigators, move your ships into position and prepare for assault. Gunners, man your battle stations and ready yourselves for battle." He spoke into the fleet comms, managing to sound a little unenthusiastic.

"All marine units are to report to their designated shuttle bays immediately. You are to secure and hold the planetary capital until further orders," Lina spoke through the comms with more spirit, though not by much. First contact wars, despite popular civilian opinion, was a regular, almost entirely unexciting affair for Hierarchical Navy officers, and this one seemed only a little different, what with how the aliens actually managed to severely cripple a relay patrol fleet only a while back.

"Watch your backs out there, people. Always remember, the primarchs are watching your performance. Those who performed their objectives exceptionally well can look forward to a bright future as a Spectre candidate," Lina continued, with some genuine cheer.

"Good luck, and may the Spirits keep you."

. . .

**_Machine Hangar D-41, Federal Navy New Larkintown Barracks, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0120 hours_**

**_General Williams_**

"Two points to the right, a shift of zero-point-seven degrees, a little adjustment to the barrel angle, and _bam!"_

Williams squeezed the gauss cannon's trigger with a dismantled MEC arm, propelling the magnetically-accelerated projectile into a training dummy's center of mass with remarkable accuracy, obliterating it utterly in a simulated explosion of wooden splinters.

"My eyes weren't nearly as good as they were back in the day, but hell, I still got it." The old general proudly declared as watched the holographic dummy piece itself back into shape.

"Think you can replicate my shot, sonny?" He offered the gun and the cybersuit arms to the only other person in the hangar that night, not even sparing a sideways glance.

Colonel Shepard firmly refused the offer. "Don't be absurd, general. I'm a close combat specialist, not a MEC sharpshooter."

Williams hadn't slept, and he knew he couldn't because he was too excited to try out the new weapons they excavated from the nearby derelict XCOM base. He decided to tire himself out by shooting at holographic targets in the hangar.

Shepard on the other hand, was always very light on his sleep due in no small part to his occupation. That night, he put on his armor and entered the hangar after hearing the loud noises coming from it. There, he was relieved to see nothing too unusual going on; it was only the general practicing his marksmanship, challenging himself by taking a shot of brandy every few minutes.

"Close-quarters, huh." Williams consumed the contents of another shot glass and turned to his side, regarding the colonel with his full attention this time. Almost immediately, he noticed what appeared to be a sheathed, exoframe-scaled officer's sword secured by magnetic locks to Shepard's hip.

He decided to play dumb. "What, like shotguns and assault rifles? There's a weapon locker over here somewhere. Why don't you try impressing this decrepit old man, then?"

The colonel scoffed. "You'll have to excuse me, I worded it rather poorly. You see, general, my expertise lies with hand-to-hand fighting, which involves melee weapons and such."

He paced around the hangar, while Wiliams listened. "Back in the old days of Earth, when war between humans and the Advent still went on, XCOM was forced on the defensive by 'berserker' mutons, a resilient variant of the muton species that relied on spiked gauntlets to dispatch our infantry. To counter this alien on equal grounds, the director introduced the Templar doctrine."

Shepard took his sword by the ornate hilt and unsheathed it, accompanied by a sharp electric crackle. Williams expected a dull old sword, but the blade appeared to be wreathed with an unstable energy field.

"The Templars were first tested in battle at a cathedral dedicated to Saint Agatha, the patron saint of healing and martyrdom." Shepard huffed a breath of a laugh. "Heh, those soldiers even inspired the formation of a quasi-religious, paramilitary organization with the Council of Nations' full support, called the Agathian Knights. I was attached to them, once. All Templars were."

"Pardon my skepticism, colonel, but I'd rely on a soldier with a gun more times than I'd do a lunatic with a fancy sword," The general dryly stated. "These things haven't been declared obsolete for centuries without a good reason, as you know."

"You're right, but we're just as skilled with a gun as we are with blades." Shepard said, indicating at the folded assault rifle he sported at the small of his back. "If the best soldier in the Federal Navy was caught in a fight where for some reason he couldn't make use of his gun, he'll be just as easily killed as the next man. One of the major points of the Templar doctrine is to be a decent combatant at all ranges; we don't overspecialize like most soldiers nowadays."

Williams pointed an accusing MEC finger at the man. "Don't you talk shit about 'Madman' Jenssen. That man's batshit-crazy, but he's a fucking legend."

Shepard gave the general a blank look. Seconds of silence passed between the two men, before Williams burst into laughter.

"Ahaha, I get what you mean, Shepard." The general took a sip out of his brandy, "How about we start this over? You said you were in a religious order, does that mean you're a praying man, Shepard, you go to church and all th-"

Williams felt his stomach churn all the sudden. The floor and the building they were in seemed to shift and shake, and the general only barely saved his brandy bottle from being toppled over the table. Things settled down after a while, though.

"Christ... what the hell was that?" Williams asked Shepard, whose helmet was already folded over his head.

"A dreadnought's fusion lance shockwave." The colonel, with some alarm in his tone, answered the general. "You know what this means, Williams? It's time."

The general didn't take long to spring into action. Bringing up his omni-tool, he opened up a commlink to Admiral Al-Aziz, who was in charge of the orbital defence fleet. "Al-Aziz, this is Malcolm speaking! What the fuck is going on up there?!"

A burst of static came from the comms before a Scottish-accented voice came through. "General, we've just spotted an unidentified fleet in approach to Shanxi, but they didn't respond to our hails." The Federal Navy admiral calmly informed his marine counterpart on the planet. "That shockwave you might have felt was from our first shot; the surveyors are reporting that two of their cruisers have just been destroyed."

The admiral paused for a while. "...not a bad start, but we can only hold three hundred frigates, a hundred cruisers and a dreadnought for long. I suggest you start preparing for unwanted company down there. I'm dropping all the sectopods planetside now."

Williams always wondered how Al-Aziz, a man of pure Middle-Eastern descent, got himself a very convincing Glaswegian brogue. He might never have the satisfaction of finding out, because the admiral was determined to fight to the end. "Give the bastards hell, admiral. I'll see you on the other side!"

"Good luck, Malcolm. We'll be transmitting our situation until we're rendered unable to do so." Still as stoic as ever, the admiral said. "This is Admiral Al-Aziz, signing off." The link was dropped.

. . .

**_HWS Indefatigable, 3,000+ kilometers to Unknown Alien Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0135 hours_**

**_Admiral Lina_**

"There hasn't been any word from Captain Resulon as of yet, admiral." A senior communications officer told her leader of the news. "That's strange... they should be telling us of their expedition results by now. Should we continue waiting for them to-"

Lina cut her off. "No, that's not necessary. Assume the worst and write them off as dead; we'll continue with conquering this world regardless of Silus' mission results." She sighed tiredly, knowing of the myriad of outdated, ridiculously unsound protocols her forces were nevertheless obliged to follow through in case of situations like the one the vanguard fleet was in.

"And what of our landing party? Any word from General Desolas at the barracks?" The admiral then inquired.

Another officer came up with the answers. "The Arterius brothers have previously signed off their approval; they're all set and are now awaiting your word to begin the assault on the alien world, admiral."

The admiral grimaced in a noticeable manner. She made it no secret that she felt very ill at ease when she neared any of the two Arterius brothers for reasons even she couldn't quite understand. General Desolas, the older Arterius, was undoubtedly a brilliant tactician and proved himself steadfastly loyal to the cause; he also never failed to try to come off as friendly and personable. However, Lina felt that his personality was just a front for something far darker. Persistent rumors of his supposed insanity and his erratic mood-swings while in private certainly did not help him appear like the honest, dependable image he was trying to cultivate to the public.

As for Lieutenant Saren the younger Arterius, Lina supposed she'd feel a lot less on edge while around him, given the fact that her younger sister was involved with the Spectre candidate at one point - he even visited the Nandrakan manor several times. Alas, his extremely polite demeanor and overly austere attitude made him come across as aloof and condescending. Lina would dare even think that she felt more wary when around Saren than with Desolas. At least the general was open and up-front, but the lieutenant was like a blank slate - cold and unreadable, with blue eyes that gleamed with terrifying deviousness and cunning.

"The enemy vessels are turning, admiral. We've been spotted!" The executive officer informed his leader, just as she was starting to relax on her seat. "Our main guns will be in range in another thousand kilometers!"

Lina nodded, taking a more active stance on her command chair. "That is no cause for alarm - everything is in order. Are the gunnery crews ready?"

"The gunners are all lit up green, they're prepared to fire on your orders, admiral!" A senior tech officer reported.

"Navigators, full speed ahead." Lina relayed her voice through the ship comms. "This will be over soon, so try to make-"

"Whoa, holy crap! One of them just opened up! THEY'VE OPENED UP!" A sensor officer shouted in alarm. "Brace for impact! We've got-"

A bright orange glare lit up the _Indefatigable's_ command bridge, blinding those unfortunate souls close to the windows. The light was gone as quickly as it appeared, and none of the fleet appeared worse for wear.

"How the hell did they have that kind of range?" Lina inquired, mostly to herself. "Status report!"

"Spirits..." The executive officer put a hand over his forehead as he read over the data from his console. "This just in, we just lost two cruisers to a directed energy attack... all hands on both vessels lost."

Lina felt her heart skip a beat. "_What. _Let me see that!" She left the command chair and stomped over to the XO's console. The holoscreen data confirmed what the officer just reported - the _Varnus_ and the _Titanborn _were both lost to a single enemy projectile that scored a precise hit on _Titanborn_, emerged out the cruiser's portside hull and continued flying until it also put _Varnus_ out of commission.

In denial, Lina stormed off the console and leaned over to the starboard windows to have a look at the fate of the two ships for herself. What she saw unnerved her: the two casualties were cleaved messily into two scorched pieces, now serving as the final resting place for a combined total of three-thousand turians, while also serving as fiery obstacles for those vessels unfortunate enough to be positioned behind the wrecks.

Lina now believed that this mission was not meant to be an routine first contact engagement. If she couldn't handle the situation competently enough in the eyes of her crew, it could spell the end of her career if she was fortunate enough, or her death if she was not.

"All vessels," The admiral started, still making an effort to appear calm. "Take evasive action. Don't let them get another shot through!"

As if the enemy heard her, another lance of orange light streaked through the void, tearing through another cruiser and severely damaging those close to the point of impact. After the vanguard fleet passed a certain threshold, a veritable hurricane of weaker but vastly more numerous energy projectiles were fired into the mass of turian vessels. The projectiles bypassed the Turian Navy's overdeveloped kinetic barriers entirely and melted off the ablative plating, superheating the interiors of the stricken ships and incinerating the unfortunate crew.

While her fleet advanced closer to the planet, Lina started to see the enemy vessels with her own eyes, and indeed, they were as impressive and intimidating as their readings indicated. "All ships in range?" She inquired her XO.

"Y-yes! The fleet is prepared to engage on your command, admiral!" He was lying through his teeth; nearly a full quarter of the fleet still lagged behind, having been crippled when plasma ripped through their engines.

"Then what the hell are you waiting for? Tell the fleet to shoot these mongrels down!" The admiral had already abandoned her prim and proper attitude.

The Hierarchical vanguard ships synchronized well with one another as they fired, peppering the enemy fleet with a hail of mass-accelerated rounds. To her eternal surprise, an attack that should've left the enemy fleet in shambles merely seemed to put large dents in their extremely thick armored plating, which was especially true for the dreadnought. The minute-long volley only managed to destroy a single cruiser and cripple two others, and this loss didn't even appear to slow the enemy attack.

_This is not fucking good_, Lina began to lose her patience. The majority of the enemy vessels were still in fighting shape, progress wasn't nearly as fast and her fleet had taken too much casualties. She hated to rely on crude tactics, but the situation left her with no choice. Relieving her executive officer of his position as her mouthpiece, the admiral began issuing the fleet orders straight from their leader.

"Legion, this is Admiral Nandrakan speaking! Our fleet has already taken too much damage, and I'm not willing to continue letting our ships get picked off like this! We must commit to a pincer movement!" She relayed, and without so much as a pause for breath, she continued, "Cruisers, stay put and assume Unyielding Colossus Doctrine! Frigates, break off from the fleet and encircle the enemy! Flank them from both sides and don't. Let. Up!"

The turian vessels quickly did as they're told, with the larger vessels staying and keeping up the fire with the command dreadnought while the frigates dispersed like hornets from their nests, wildly picking several different directions only to reorganize as they closed in on enemy vessels, combining their fire to a much better effect than the previous volley.

Things slowly started looking up for Lina, as they should be. Finally, she could take the load from her shoulders and let the marines handle the job planetside, after the initial bombardment. It would be one hell of a public rep nightmare waiting for her the moment her battered fleet returned to Digeris, but at the price of reverse-engineered plasma weapons and another conquered world, she might have the necessary offerings for her to keep her career.

"Admiral! Some ships in the fleet report to having been infiltrated! They're asking you for orders!" Suddenly, one of the comm officers alerted the admiral with a desperate expression, his comm-bead having been repeatedly assaulted by the panicked reports of turian marines dying to unknown alien boarders.

"What? That's... that's not possible! It's not-" Lina cut herself off, having come to the realization that she had seen very impossible things manifesting before her eyes. How the aliens managed to sneak in several boarding parties into the vanguard fleet's midst without being spotted, the admiral had no clue. "Gah, what do you _think _they should do? Mobilize all landing parties and use them to repel the boarders!"

The officer quickly got to work, lest he invoke his leader's wrath. "Cruisers, the admiral needs you to clear your ships of hostile contacts! Round up the marines in your crew and... wait a minute. That can't be right..." According to his flashing console, the marine detail in the _Indefatigable's _cargo bay reported having been engaged with robotic insects.

Just as the turian officer was about to warn the admiral, the bulkhead his console was mounted to was suddenly blasted open by an emerald-green explosion, covering him with severe plasma burns and dropping his broken body to the floor, much to the shock of the entire bridge crew. When the smoke cleared and the electrical fires died down somewhat, one of the alien boarders revealed itself, hovering ominously at the breach it made on the _Indefatigable's _command bridge wall.

"Spirits, what the fuck is that thing!" One of the navigators shouted, just as the boarder, a silver-painted robot with a profile that highly resembled a floating spider-like creature, impaled the comm officer lying on the floor with its sharpened tail and subsequently tearing into the poor man's corpse like a predator with its kill.

"DON'T just stand there!" Lina screamed in exasperation at her crew, drawing her sidearm and emptying rounds into the creature as it enthusiastically painted the walls with the comm officer's blood. "Fucking SHOOT IT!"

The bridge security guardsmen were the first to regain composure, drawing their assault rifles and peppering the alien machine with mass-accelerated bullets. The rest of the crew quickly joined in with their sidearms and omni-tool tech attacks. The creature buckled and twitched as rounds and other projectiles pinged off its vulnerable interior plating, and it responded by spraying wild, inaccurate fire on the bridge crew, scorching at least two officers who were standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. Eventually, as the bridge security guards started doing serious damage, the machine was forced to fold itself into a disc-like defensive form before attempting to retreat.

"Stand clear!" A security guard pulled a grenade launcher from a weapon rack and fired a shot at the fleeing creature. She missed her first attempt, but she managed to score a direct hit on the machine on her second shot, which caused it to explode in a spectacular manner, covering the walls and machinery close to it with thick scorch marks in the process.

Lina let her smoking pistol slip from her trembling claws. Looking very terrified yet extremely furious at the same time, the admiral finally had enough. "This day MUST be won, no matter the damned cost! _Get back to work!_"

. . .

**_Fortified Bunker Complex, Level 8, XCOM Shanxi Branch_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0230 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard_**

"The _Achilles _just went down, all escape pods jettisoned into the planet." Admiral Al-Aziz reported calmly, in contrast to the large amount of panicked shouts and blaring klaxons accompanying his voice in the background. "One of my ship's turrets just went offline. Commencing field repairs."

Shepard had told Williams that he and the agents won't be joining him and his marines as they took shelter in another bunker hidden away underneath the barracks in New Larkintown, due to overcrowding. Just after helping with evacuating New Larkintown's civilian populace, the agents packed their gear, sent their remaining Lotus units to assist the spaceborne defenders and left the city to take shelter in the ransacked XCOM base.

Once Al-Aziz's defence fell, there would be nothing to stop the aliens from desolating the colony with repeated orbital bombardments.

"There's too many of them. We can't hold for much longer." The admiral said. "Christ, a dozen flankers just blew off the engines. My dreadnought can't turn; we're sitting du-." A wave of static momentarily blocked out the commlink. "-there's no one left, it's just my ship now. Most of the crew already left using the escape pods... but we might still buy a few more minutes before..." The admiral quietly trailed off when his ship's raid sirens started to get louder and louder, drowning out every other sound in the commlink.

"...we've been boarded."

At the XCOM base, some of the agents thought about what course of action would they take had they been in charge of Al-Aziz's dreadnought. They quickly made the decision to set the ship's reactors to critically overload, blowing the vessel into oblivion and destroying anything close to it when it exploded. Two hundred kilometers away, General Williams and some of his men have hoped that the admiral and his crew would fight off the enemy marines and keep taking the fight to the alien fleet.

"Comm relays are taking damage. General Williams, if you're still listening, then do me a favor and don't let these wankers take over the planet. I don't want to die for nothing." The admiral said, resigned to his fate. "They'll be knocking down on my door any moment now, but I won't let them reach that point. I'm not in the mood for visitors at the moment."

He sighed, then distinctive the sound of a cork being plucked out of a bottle was heard. "Aaahh, good thing I spent most of my retirement fund on this - all three-hundred and seven credits of it. Goodbye, everyone. I hope you have better luck than I did."

With that said, the commlink was cut.

"Think he'll do the right thing?" Karlotte queried the other colonel.

Shepard dropped his omni-tool. "We'll see." He stood up from his seat. "Right now, we need to worry about ourselves. If the aliens did what every decent tactician would, we'll have to wait the bombardment out and link up with Williams in the city."

The colonel looked to his agents, which numbered only in the few hundreds. "By that time, the bare bones of our plan should already be in place." He shuddered to think just how much troops the enemy can afford to put down.

. . .

**_Unknown Alien Colony, in perimeter of Colony Capital_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0620 hours_**

**_Corporal Vespasius Thrax - Predator Squad designated marksman_**

"This area's clear! Double time it, people!" The shuttle co-pilot set the green light for the marines to clear out of the vehicle. "Give the bastards hell, boys! For the primarchs!"

Corporal Thrax was among those marines. Being barely out of boot camp, Thrax was absolutely thrilled to make use of his new skills. But like most new soldiers of the Hierarchy, he also couldn't help but feel a little nervous at the fact that he was to participate in active combat, where someone else would be testing their skills on him, too.

The eight-man team of Predator Squad filed out of their vehicle, neatly forming themselves up with other squads from the other landing shuttles. Hovering convoys of Sikarius Main Battle Tanks accompanied by fast-moving pairs of the more traditional Gladius Infantry Fighting Vehicle passed by those turians on foot, and Firelance fighter jets zoomed past their heads, monitoring the city airspace for enemy aircraft and drones. It was a long walk from the wilderness to the city they were scheduled to besiege and capture, but the Hierarchy's marines were trained to not let such things hinder a campaign's progress.

Thrax felt the cold morning wind on his face as he marched along the paved road with his comrades. He was burdened by the heavy legionnaire gear he was obliged to take along, but his excitement and trepidation kept his mind off any small inconvenience. Looking up ahead, he could faintly see the devastated alien capital on the horizon, with thick plumes of smoke billowing from several of the flattened buildings.

Admiral Nanadrakan - furious at the losses she sustained after the enemy dreadnought self-destructed - immediately called for the prolonged orbital bombardment of the planet below them in order to destroy anti-air defences for the landing shuttles' benefit and to soften up any resisting forces the aliens could muster up. She was careful not to overdo it, though, for she had standing orders to capture the world without rendering it into an inhospitable, near-worthless rock of fire and rubble.

The soldiers followed the trail until they reached the outskirts of the ruined city, which looked completely devoid of life. Rubble, wide craters in the earth and scorched buildings were what dominated the landscape, and even bits of the destroyed alien dreadnought were discovered among the ruins.

Still, the marines plowed through every obstacle in the way and shouldered on, keeping on the lookout for any defenders. Predator was just unfortunate enough to be assigned to the very tip of the spearhead formation, meaning that if alien forces attempted an assault at the front of the turian force, Predator Squad would be the first to feel the brunt of the attack.

"You think we're going to see some action around these parts?" Lance Corporal Apulium blurted out, querying anyone listening. "The fleet sure did a number on this place, flattened down everything. I've been waiting all my life to finally shoot somebody, then we come down here and find out that some overcompensating cannon cocker in orbit did our jobs for us."

"We'd count ourselves lucky to even come across a tank or something," Another lance corporal, Kaeso, put out his thoughts. "Nothing but rubble out here. It's strange that we haven't come across any bodies, though. I want to see how they looked like."

"I heard they're all fifteen feet tall, have asses for faces and have tentacles growing out of their crotch," Sergeant Secundus, Predator's squad leader, can't resist a chance to mess with his subordinates. "Neh, just kidding. Nobody's ever seen what these bastards look like, though I bet they're ugly as the yahg. The universe keeps surprising us with life's ugliness."

"Captain Resulon and his men _probably _saw what the aliens look like, and you can bet they wished they just saw ugly." It was Thrax's turn to speak. "They haven't reported back in ages, and they're likely roasting over a fire right now, with the natives dancing around them like damned pyjaks."

"That's not that bad of a thought, actually." Secundus chuckled. "Resulon had me cleaning latrines for a whole week because I didn't salute him when I had my hands full. Always wanted that idiot get taken down a peg since then."

Suddenly, a Galan tank painted with the traditional command colors hovered up, accompanied by a trio of smaller Sikarii. The three vehicles moved up the formation, parking themselves at the very front, just as the men gathered up together to hear what their commander had to say.

The Galan's command hatch slid open, and out came General Severus, one of the senior marine commanders. "Alright, men! Stand in attention and listen to me!" He commanded his soldiers as he emerged out of the hovertank, coming up to stand at the top of the turret.

General Severus, a noted scholar of turian military history, a veteran of many undocumented Terminus Systems engagements and an infamously eccentric fellow, was wearing an old-fashioned Unification Wars-era general's uniform complete with an antique ceremonial sword, said to be wielded by a supposedly exceedingly famous ancestor of his.

"Legionaries, we are about to embark into hostile territory!" Severus grandly declared at the top of his voice. "It may not look like it, but I'm secure in my knowledge that the enemy will cross all lines just to halt our indefatigable march! In _fact_, I wouldn't be so surprised if they're listening to me speak now, _trembling_ in FEAR of our approach!"

"Ohhh, boy. Here he goes with the speech again..." Secundus muttered to his men behind his shoulder with gritted mandibles.

Apulium lowered his head as he talked, "What, does the general do something like this often, sarge?"

Secundus wore a smug grin on his face. "This?" He gestured at the Severus atop his tank, making wild gestures with his arms spread wide. "All the damn time. It don't motivate us men and veterans none, but the boys and the unbloodied eat his bullshit rhetoric up like a Demetrius-class through fuel," He laughed. "With Severus around, morale is never a problem when your army's full of stupid rookies with too much muscle and too little brains."

"-courage, duty and dedication, that's what this navy needs from you!" General Severus continued, his voice never wavering in strength and grandeur. "Perform your duties with these traits and show no hesitation to do the Hierarchy's justice, then your rewards will be great - you'll secure your own place in Citadel history! Conversely, display _any_ sort of cowardice and hesitation to die for the cause, then I'll personally see to it that you will be _severely_ punished! History will _forget_ that you even _existed_!"

The marine general drew his sword, levelling it at the deserted streets of the alien city ahead. "Go forth, brave soldiers! We'll see to it that the legion flag is raised over this city today, or die trying! Forward MARCH!" He quickly hopped back into his tank, just as the marines shouted and cheered for their leader.

With renewed vigor, the turian force moved into the city proper, with General Severus' tank leading the charge. They came there expecting to find glory and triumph, but what they found waiting for them in the city was - to their shock and horror - quite the opposite.

The Hierarchical marines were forced to halt their advance when Severus' command tank suddenly burst apart in a great, fiery eruption, incinerating quite a few of those standing in close proximity to the vehicle and maiming several others who were either set on fire by the blast or were struck by the flying superheated metal bits from the exploding Galan.

Thrax was quick to shake off his surprise and regain his composure, jumping off to the side of the street and out of the open... though some of his fellow marines were not as swift nor auspicious. Kaeso and a dozen others, having been caught out in the open without cover by a hail of plasma bolts heading their way, were painfully consumed by fire when a hidden alien repeater turret opened fire on them from the cover of ruins.

"INCOMIIING!" Secundus screamed as several humanoid figures in conventional armor painted in urban camouflage colors emerged from the rubble and the windows.

They utilized the element of surprise to terrifying effect as they opened up with their arsenal of plasma weaponry on the confused turian marines, sowing heavy casualties in the small period of fifteen seconds. Infantry were cut down from where they stood and vehicles were quickly disabled by a swift plasma explosive to the turret area, if they weren't outright destroyed.

The aliens didn't stay in one place to add to the turians' disorientation; they fired as they moved from one position in the ruins to another, covering each other and intermittently hurling plasma grenades and flashbangs in a twisted, foreign parallel to established turian stratagem.

Quickly reorganizing themselves, the Hierarchy's troops returned fire with their mass-accelerator arms, killing several of the aliens in turn as they were moving out in the open street. Turian marines split off into groups of six and fired as they advanced, showing off that they were capable of squad-level tactics as well. Accurate sniper fire from the marksmen picked off those alien soldiers perched on the windows, and omni-tool tech attacks proved quite useful in a myriad of combat tasks.

Hovertanks and IFVs concentrated their firepower on the most entrenched alien positions while Hierarchy aircraft made danger-close strafing runs with machine guns and rockets, destroying any obstacle in the path to victory. With every dead alien, progress was made.

In the end, superior numbers and air superiority proved to be the most deciding factor in that battle, as the turians slowly pushed the battlefront back, deeper into the city. General Severus' death was a heavy blow to morale, but the marines were quick to regain their strength under a new leader, Colonel Lukarn Jorianus.

"Drive them back, soldiers of the legion! ADVANCE!" Lukarn was among those marines who led the charge, blazing away at the enemy with his battle rifle. Realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, the aliens quickly switched from frontal, man-to-man assaults to guerrilla tactics - sniping at advancing marines from afar and making flanking attacks on overextended turian units before quickly retreating.

Thrax was among those marksmen who chose to stay behind and pick off any alien that came into sight. He and a few others of his designation were holed up on an intact rooftop, with plenty of cover to adequately hide themselves from sight.

The marine sharpshooter lined up a fleeing target his spotter took notice of in the space of three seconds. He pulled the rifle's trigger and made his seventh kill for the day, satisfied at the work he's done. Pulling his sights from the scope and letting his spotter do his job, the corporal took the time to clean his scope's lens and readjust the sights.

"Whoa, take a look at that!" Private Lanius indicated at a distance, near where the main advance force should be. "Over by that rooftop with the slanted billboard, close to that plume of smoke!"

The marine sharpshooter grumbled inaudibly as he peered back into his scope, to the direction where his spotter gestured at. Annoyed to see nothing special coming into view, he took a closer look and turned on his scope's thermal vision.

His jaw dropped in shock at what he saw. "Holy shit," He mumbled. "Secundus and Lukarn are fucked."

The view that was obscured by rubble was glowing a bright orange in the thermal sights, indicating massive numbers of hostiles hidden there. Hovering just a few meters to the right also revealed a large number of waiting hostiles utilizing cloaking devices, lying in wait for Colonel Lukarn's force to move past them and attack their vulnerable rear flank.

"We need to warn the poor bastards." Lanius said. "They'll get wiped out."

The corporal was already on it, activating the radio built into his suit's collar. He turned to his side as he spoke into the device, "Stingray Five, this is Corporal Vespasius of Predator Squad. You're advancing into an ambush, I repeat, you're about to be ambushed. My spotter and I noticed a-"

A pair of metal hands grabbed hold of the metal handles on Thrax's backpack, hoisted him up to his feet and slammed him onto the rooftop's concrete fence, knocking the wind out of him. His assailant then pulled him back, violently throwing him away from the rooftop's edge and onto the floor.

Thrax coughed and wheezed as he tried to stand up. As he struggled up, his eyes came across his spotter lying down on the floor with him some distance away, weakly clutching at the gushing blade wound on his throat while he gurgled his last breaths.

Acting on adrenaline, Thrax hurriedly got up to his feet and tried to take his fallen rifle, but as he turned around, he was horrified to see a scene lifted straight from a surreal nightmare: the rooftop he was standing was now almost completely covered in turian blood and viscera, with the mutilated corpses of his fellow sharpshooters strewn haphazardly over the floor and the concrete fence. There were almost no signs of struggle, indicating that if the attackers wanted Thrax dead, he wouldn't even have the time to think about it.

"No... NO!" Panic fully took hold of the marine sharpshooter. He tried to make a run for it, but was forced to stop when he found his path blocked by several alien creatures in dark exoframes wielding plasma weapons and brandishing oversized, electrified knives.

As the aliens slowly approached him with unsavory intent, Thrax could feel his heart beat faster than his mind could register. He turned around to head back, but he soon came to the realization that with every direction he could take, there stood an alien soldier, looking at him with those gas-mask helmets with pairs of blank, soulless eye sockets that glowed a ghastly orange-red. His only chance for freedom was a dangerous jump from the edge of the building.

Remembering the things he was taught at basic training, Thrax decided to give the aliens a bloody nose instead of salvaging what chance he had at continued living. He tapped at his chestplate quicker than the aliens could react, activating the grenades strapped to a bandolier there. As the aliens scrambled for cover and took running steps backwards, the marine sharpshooter waited to die.

That was it for him, he thought. He'll be remembered; his life for the cause.

Alas, the corporal didn't expect one of the aliens to suddenly appear by his side, holding what appeared to be a plastic block mounted on a pistol grip. Thrax reacted too late when he found himself incapacitated by an electric shock from the device. Before he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was one of the aliens tearing off his grenade bandolier and throwing it into the air, off the side of the rooftop.

. . .

**_New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0650 hours_**

**_General Williams - 'Hammerhead'_**

Williams in his enhanced Juggernaut MEC - utilizing a cloaking device taken from the XCOM base - materialized into sight on a rooftop just above the alien advance force. His soldiers, all garrisoned in buildings adjacent to the enemy formation, also emerged from the windows, brandishing sniper rifles and machine guns.

"Wait for it..." The general held up a cybersuit arm, and his men awaited his word.

The aliens obliviously strolled past the hidden Federal colonial force. They advanced further up the street until they arrived at an intersection, where a suspicious amount of rubble and junk liberally covered the area. Williams tried to contain his laughter when the first alien soldier stepped over a piece of rubble, making it start inexplicably _humming _for some reason.

The aliens ignored the strange noise at first, but then it started getting louder. More and more pieces of rubble started humming in accord as the soldiers passed over them. Soon, the humming was all that could be heard, surrounding the aliens with a wall of noise and confusing them to no end. It was at that time that Williams decided to stop toying around with the enemy. He watched with anticipation as he offhandedly gave his adjutant with the detonator beside him a thumbs-up.

The adjutant rolled her eyes. "About time, sir." She darkened the shade on her helmet's visor before she pressed the button.

A massive, brilliant emerald explosion erupted at the intersection, scorching anything within its radius with the heat of a star twice over. Nearly a thousand aliens and several dozen of their vehicles were caught in the explosion, messily yet painlessly eradicating all traces of them from existence. All those who witnessed the explosion in close proximity and were unfortunate enough to be still alive at the end of it were permanently rendered blind - their eyes quite literally burned from their sockets like eggs in a microwave oven. All that's left of the intersection was a giant, smoking crater.

"Hah!" Williams allowed himself a single, hearty breath of a laughter. "Heh, that was, ehem, very unexpected!" He grinned, mentally praising XCOM for providing him with such a magnificent plasma bomb. He could only imagine the scale of the explosion if the bomb wasn't tweaked down to its lowest heat output.

The remnants of the alien advance force panicked, as expected. They ran back the direction they came from, straight into the arms of the waiting Federal forces.

"Aha, that's right, you sick, probing fucks... come to me... come to Daddy Malcolm..." Williams muttered to himself as the aliens approached.

"General Williams, we saw the explosion," A commlink with Colonel Shepard on the other side resounded in Williams' radio. "You need to initiate the second phase of our plan and immediately vacate your forces from that area. Your time runs short, so make it quick."

Williams was taken by surprise. "'Vacate my forces'? Now, why the hell would I wanna do that, spook? Are you out of your mind?" He spoke into the comms. "We have them by the balls; we should take the fight to them and drive them outta here, I say."

"It would be a mistake to assume that the enemy hasn't been adapting to the situation, general. As I speak, a larger force of hostiles - eight thousand of them, are moving up from the outskirts and to your position." The colonel informed the general in a flat, calm tone. "You'll be wiped out without our help."

"Yeah, and about that - just _why _don't you come over here and help us out, spy boy?" Williams inquired the agent. "Or is that how XCOM does things - get the Federation to do its dirty work?"

Colonel Shepard scoffed. "If my precursors did precisely that, both of us would never have existed. My forces are on other parts of the city, general, and they have their own objectives. A task force just secured a captive for us to interrogate, another prevented a group of shuttles from offloading more soldiers into the city, and another one just diverted a large force of hovertanks away from your position. We've all been busy, despite evidence to the contrary."

"Yeah, yeah. I get you." Williams abruptly cut comms, grumbling to himself as he opened up another link to another part of his task force nearby, consisting mostly of sectopods and MEC troopers. "Earthshakers, this is Hammerhead. Phase two of three is a go, I repeat, proceed with the attack. Make every shot count and leave none of these bastards alive! Hammerhead, out."

The aliens continued to retreat further down the street. They would've left with no further casualties, but suddenly, the ground beneath them had started to quake.

Several soldiers in MECs rounded a corner and quickly set up a blockade on the aliens' path, preventing them from escaping back to friendly lines. The cybersuited humans levelled their arms and promptly unleashed hell at the mass of alien soldiers, cooking them inside out as particle beams superheated their armor and natural carapace. Most of the aliens reorganized into small groups and returned fire, but to no avail, as all human military-grade Ilyushinite armor were reinforced specifically to resist mass-accelerated projectiles from prothean schematics.

Realizing that trying to fight was a lost cause, the aliens doubled back to the vaporized intersection, but once again, they found themselves beset by a quartet of hulking bipedal machines armed with fusion lances and blaster launchers, supported by squads of human infantry. It was at this time that Williams ordered his men to open fire from the windows, showering the enemy below them with sniper and machine gun fire. Some of the aliens broke off from their squads and ran off into the alleys, but most decided to make one final stand, fighting with greater ferocity in a manner similar to cornered rats.

Though they fought valiantly until the end, it didn't take long for the aliens to get messily wiped out. Over three thousand of them were killed on that street, in contrast to the middling casualties Williams' forces sustained, mostly from the sectopods' infantry support. Williams found the aliens' tenacity quite admirable, but deluded. He won't let them invade human colonies and walk away unscathed.

"Pack up and move out of here, maggots!" He ordered through the comms, as he let his smoking particle cannon cool off. "Report to the city center immediately, we're all in for the fight of our lives! _Get to it!_"

. . .

**_Rosenkov Materials New Larkintown Branch, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0820 hours_**

**_Junior Operative Petrucci - Heilong Cluster CARD observer_**

"What. The hell. Is that thing."

Agent Lewis gave the CARD operative a bemused look. "What, never seen anything like this before?"

"Henry, no." Nicoletta shook her head at the XCOM agent. "That's absolutely ridiculous. Nobody's going to make use of a damned, honest-to-God _shield _in a _firefight_ with _guns _involved. This isn't a riot, or the Middle Ages."

Lewis laughed her off. "Not any of us sane folk use this sort of equipment, but Shepard and the Templars do. Everything's a riot to those crazy bastards. Come on, help me carry this thing to him." He spared her an examining look. "And you should get rid of that bloody coat and armor up, I don't think your clothes can stop bullets."

Nicoletta, against her better judgement, assisted Lewis in hauling off the tall Ilyushinite shield, which resembled an ancient Roman scutum-type rectangular shield in shape and profile. "So you've got people from the Agathian Knights, too. I thought I'd never see insanity in the likes of XCOM, especially from the colonel. Guess I should've known better."

"What, Shepard? A fuckin' Agathian?" The agent laughed again. "Nah, he's just spent a large amount of time attached to the 'em as an advisor of sorts. Got a little _too _attached, actually. Heard he started crossing himself every now and then."

"Yeah, I get you." The operative nodded as several agents from both of their organizations scurried past them. "The main problem I have with Agathians is that they're reckless - they're always too eager to start fights and finish them off with swords and the like. They seem like a cult to me, but other than that, they're good to have in dangerous assignments."

"Hmf, I wouldn't know anything 'bout that." Lewis shrugged his armored shoulders.

The two agents traversed a short distance from the abandoned, Federal Navy-commandeered Rosenkov Materials building to the barracks, where they found Shepard already in his exoframe's first layer, in the process of attaching several other pieces to complete the suit. Nicoletta was somewhat disturbed to see the cuts and precise incision marks on the colonel's bare flesh, indicating where his countless augs were implanted into his body. She was also perplexed at his inexplicably large and muscular frame, but she just chalked it up to growth augs, to amplify his combat abilities in his expertise - close combat.

"Thought I'd never see you out of that armor, Shepard." Lewis remarked.

The colonel put down the compacted assault rifle/sub-machine gun hybrid he was holding on a nearby desk. "With the amount of new gear we retrieved from the derelict base here, I figured it was time for an upgrade." He walked over to the agents and took his shield from their hands. "It's been a long time since I used one of these in a live firefight. Not much berserkers these days."

"Speaking of _human _berserkers," Nicoletta cut in. "I let mine go off into the city. I read through his mind... and I saw what he did. I can't stand being in the presence of such a terrible waste of oxygen, so I had him charge the nearest enemy position and got done with it."

Shepard's austere features softened a little. "All of our psi-operatives and FARSIGHT agents get used to controlling these criminals, in due course. The galaxy's better off with them being dead, but one of our previous directors thought that these inmates would make better use as berserkers rather than just having them killed."

"What I'd do to get my own Jedi mind powers..." Lewis audibly muttered to himself as he hauled more gear into the room, for his own use later.

Nicoletta ignored the field agent. "XCOM is certainly a strange lot. You take members from almost every organization out there with at least one person in it. You never cared who they were, or what they used to do, just that they're the best at it, and they're loyal."

"That's according to popular rumors and myth. Most of our people were born into the organization from parents actively working - or used to actively work - for XCOM." Shepard talked as he placed a sheet of Ilyushinite plating over his left forearm, sealing it into place by interlocking it with the adjacent sheets. "We take retirement as a temporary matter. You'll never know when you'll be called into active service again."

"Retirement, huh." The Federal spy folded her arms. "I didn't think that's an option for XCOM agents. Well... not anymore, it isn't."

"The colonel grimaced. Now that he had something greater to live for, he was looking forward to retiring one day and experiencing life as a Federation citizen, looking out for a family of his own. "Don't remind me. Karlotte and I just picked a very inconvenient time..."

"Time for _what?" _Lewis questioned Shepard from his corner of the room.

Shepard wasn't about to distract a valued soldier of his from the dire situation at hand. He attached the final sheets to complete his exoframe, saving his helmet for last.

"You'll learn soon enough, Lewis. We need to get moving, right now." He magnetically locked his assault rifle to his side, and hooked several plasma grenades to his belt. "Williams should already be outside, and his men in position."

"You think we can successfully hold off several thousands of these things with no cavalry heading our way, Jonathan? If we pull this off, we still have those ships on orbit to deal with." Nicoletta reminded the man. "There's nothing stopping them from simply bombing us to oblivion once they found out that their attack had failed."

"Call me Shepard," The colonel offhandedly told the operative. "The Federation may be slow to wake, but once it gets going, nothing short of an alien invasion of Earth can slow it down. Williams had already asked for assistance hours ago when my fears were confirmed, but we're not sure when our reinforcements would arrive. If I'm guessing correctly, the director should send a fleet to help out with the counter-assault."

"Screw that, he'll send off fuckin' Carolyn herself," Lewis stepped forwards, already having had his entire arsenal of a shotgun, two pistols, a large knife and several different grenades strapped to his armored body. "I never did get to see the Old One in action personally. Wager'd it be so satisfying to watch her tear apart those alien cruisers above."

"Right now, you sound just like yourself back when we were initiates." The colonel smiled, a rare occurence for him.

Lewis struck his commanding officer's armored shoulder, with nothing held back. Shepard didn't even flinch. "Yeah, I remember that memory. You were that smart-mouthed, snobby wanker fresh from the ATLAS course, and I was a humble rookie out of regular boot camp. Ah, the times sure were different back then, hehe."

"I'll let you believe what you choose to believe, Field Agent Lewis." Shepard placed a gauntleted hand over Lewis' shoulderplate and gave it a rough shake in turn, nearly toppling over the smaller agent.

"You boys want me to leave and let you have a little private space or...?" Nicoletta smirked as both men turned to face her. "Ahah... alright, I'll go and get armored up now. How about a little private space for this lady, if you gentlemen would please?" She held the zipper on her coat as if she was about to undress, to emphasize her words.

"Let's make like chivalrous gits and give 'er some 'private space', Comman- er, _Colonel _Shepard." Lewis said as he took slow, hesitant steps back, away from the room.

The other man walked after his fellow agent, a smirk on his face. "I don't think you're being _really _sure you don't want to stay and watch our CARD friend get suited up..."

. . .

**_Decius Sector Grid F-58, Unknown Alien Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0840 hours_**

**_First Lieutenant Saren Arterius - Special Tactics and Recon candidate_**

"We'll have such a valuable prize once we push the aliens out of this planet," Saren listened intently as his brother, General Desolas, fiddled with a captured alien plasma rifle in his hands.

"Our soldiers would be complete terrors on the battlefield with these guns in hand, and they'll be virtually unstoppable when equipped with alien alloy armor. For this, we have the aliens to thank, Saren." The older Arterius brother handed over the gun for his sibling to examine, while his soldiers scurried to and fro, carrying with them bodybags containing dead alien soldiers.

The lieutenant took it eagerly. "If we had this sort of tech back in the Rebellions, the war would've ended a lot sooner, and without anything saddling our fragile conscience in the end." He sarcastically quipped as he observed the peculiar contours of the plasma rifle, noting its cylindrical shape and the dull green glow some other parts emitted.

"Soldier, come over here," Saren looked up from the weapon, hailing a passing marine. "Take this and try a few volleys over, see if you can hit a target with it." He handed over the rifle to marine as she approached.

He wasn't dumb enough to try out an alien weapon himself.

The marine, a staff sergeant by the name of Kalista, obeyed as she was ordered and took aim on the scorched, shattered husk of a nearby Gladius. Saren nodded at her prompting look, and she quickly pulled the trigger in response.

Saren's suspicions were confirmed when the gun suddenly burst apart in a small plasma explosion, severely burning the marine's hands and the side of her face. If Kalista wasn't wearing her helmet, the front of her head would've had been scorched off by the intense heat.

"I knew it," The lieutenant grimaced as several other marines carried off their screaming, injured comrade to the nearest field infirmary. "It was all too easy to acquire these weapons; the aliens would've had countermeasures if they'll just let us have their guns as they fell back."

"These aliens are definitely much smarter than the standard savage lot," Desolas noted, after he regained his composure. "We're fortunate that there weren't nearly enough of them to stop our advance."

"I don't knew if you've been forgetting everything you saw in the past few hours, brother, but these aliens are clearly far from being 'savages'... at least when technology is concerned." Saren said, leaning on Desolas' command vehicle. "They certainly aren't lacking in small unit tactics and guerrilla warfare. Their fleet also put up a really good fight even even when massively outnumbered."

"You're not considering defecting to them now, are you?" Desolas teased the younger Arterius, lightly pushing him by his shoulderpad. "Planning on going native on me, dress up in animal skin and start wearing bones, brother? Maybe even get yourself a native wife with concubines on the side?"

"If I wanted that lifestyle, I'd have already defected to the krogan years ago." Saren replied, looking over at the horizon. He didn't even notice his brother's sudden slack-jawed expression. "But then again, they'd probably rip me to shreds. I never liked the look of their women eith-"

"All units, this is General Desolas Arterius." Saren looked to his side to find his brother blankly staring off into the distance, with a talon to his comm-bead. "I just received word that the humans have mobilized to a vulnerable position to the northwest. This is our chance; we must intercept and crush them before they know we're here. Desolas, out."

It didn't take a visionary to ascertain that something was wrong with the general. "Desolas, are you alright? Who did you 'receive word' of this intel from? And what the hell are 'humans'?"

Desolas slowly turned his head to look at his brother, in a manner strikingly similar to a geth unit. "From my radio, lieutenant. A section of light infantry reported directly to me just now." Saren cringed at Desolas' flat monotone. "You must get yourself prepared for the attack. If you'll excuse me, I need to hop back in my tank now." He didn't even answer Saren's last inquiry.

Before the lieutenant could press further, however, he suddenly felt a spike of agony concentrated on his head, much like an especially painful migraine. He gasped as he hobbled clumsily backwards, clutching his head in his hands.

_We have had enough of your wretched kind, turian. You are not welcome here._

Saren heard a tiny voice whispering in his head, its tone full of bitterness and spite.

_Twice, we came under threat from forces superior to yours. Twice now, we stood triumphant against the impossible odds. _

"What... the fuck?" The lieutenant mumbled as his body suddenly felt extremely heavy, threatening to topple itself over. The voices in his head also started to multiply, taking a more malicious approach.

**_This time, we come prepared. We have come far. We do not intend to crumble to your PATHETIC invasion now. _**

Saren tried to mentally fight back against the cruel force attempting to invade his mind, but he was quickly overwhelmed. He was at the voices' mercy.

_**So come to us... come and we will TEAR the flesh from your bones, and EAT your EYES. **_

Disturbing, grotesque images of turians being clawed apart by towering, shadowy creatures flashed before Saren's eyes, and they were horrifying enough to elicit the turian into emptying the contents of his stomach into the ruined pavement, to his nearby comrades' shock and revulsion.

"Lieutenant, are you alright?" A pair of medics quickly arrived to assist the younger Arterius, who seemed on the verge of losing his footing. The medics helped him to stand, but the lieutenant fell down nonetheless as he lost control of his legs.

Saren slowly lost all consciousness as the alarmed medics carried him off to lie on a stretcher, just as Desolas entered his command tank's hatch and started issuing priority move orders from his radio, still sporting the unnerving monotone.

With General Severus dead and Air Marshal Caracalla presumed dead after his craft crashed somewhere outside the city due to alien commandos, the entire turian force of over nine thousand men and women were obliged to obey the highest ranking officer still alive. Pushing deeper into the very heart of the alien city, the Hierarchy's soldiers were unaware that they were being led to a trap.

**. . .**

**_Swanson-Mallory Court Solutions Floor #7, New Larkintown City Center, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0920 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard - 'Kodiak'_**

"Hm-hm, they're pretty easy to manipulate once you have had enough time to observe who's in charge," Shepard listened to Karlotte on the radio. She was out in the field with her fellow FARSIGHT operatives, on a mind control assignment. "I overwhelmed a general's mind and had him order his men straight to you. None of them even objected to his strange behavior, besides a single one we had to mindfray the _fuck_ out of."

"Excellent work. Something else you can tell me about the enemy, Karlotte?" The colonel inquired further. Him and his fellow agents in the city center were holed up in several tall structures, ready to open fire on the aliens below them as they passed by.

"I dunno why, but these aliens have very, _very _Greco-Roman sounding names and designations." The other colonel said, her tone that of fascination. "The one I have under my thumb right now's called Desolas Arterius, and he's serving with his brother, Saren Arterius. I can try probing deeper for more knowledge, but that'll take me more time."

Shepard could only think of one thing to say. "They have _names_?" He asked, in genuine surprise and bafflement. "These aren't slave-clones we're fighting?"

"No, Jonathan, we're up against the alien version of the Roman Empire this time, the 'Turian Hierarchy'." Karlotte informed Shepard. "Hey, alien Romans in space... it's a little funny. Now that you made me curious... maybe the Ancient Romans got their culture from these ancient astronaut turian guys, and they've come to sue humans for plagiarism now." She chuckled at her own joke.

The colonel shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "Whether these 'turians' were really clones or not or why they're trying to capture this colony hardly matters for us now, anyway. They attacked us, and it's only natural that we try to defend ourselves against extraterrestrial invaders. What's your position now?"

"I'm about... er, hang on. I'm maaaybe thirty minutes away from you." The FARSIGHT colonel said. "Be advised, the aliens will make it there before us, so try not to expect warm company the first time. See you later, Jon. Save some for the rest of us psionics, will you?"

"Goodbye, Karlotte. Stay safe... for both our sakes." He said in turn before Karlotte cut the comms.

The colonel smiled behind his helmet. Despite everything that happened between the day he met her and now, Karlotte had never lost her ability to make light of everything, even on the darkest hour. He detested her for it at first along with many other legitimate reasons, but he warmed up to her in due time.

"Awww, how sweet. Are they an item or something?" Operative Nicoletta, now in her CARD-issue light infantryman's exoframe, crooned over at her corner in the office building as she witnessed Shepard conversing with Karlotte.

Lewis beside her, who sat comfortably on a flattened couch as he calmly sharpened his powered Ilyushinite Bowie knife, brought his blade into the light to examine its edge. "Nope, absolutely not. They're totally not practically married right now." He sheathed the knife, satisfied with his work. "Where do you get these _ridiculous_ assumptions, anyway?"

"They say that being in danger draws people closer to one another," Nicoletta said, to Lewis' silent approval. "But, it's none of my business. I'm from out the organization, you see."

"You're practically an XCOM agent now, you know." Lewis smirked. "Fraternization is now authorized, I think."

"Hah, loud Aussies aren't my type. Not even in your 'bloody' dreams, Mr. Postman." Nicoletta spoke sweetly, despite her words.

"Perhaps a 'little private space' is on order for you two," Both of them didn't notice Shepard listening in. "I can have the entire building vacated for your benefit - let you do some 'covert activities and reconnaissance' in private, perhaps."

Lewis laughed as Nicoletta covered her face with both gauntlets. "Since when the bloody hell did _you_ start jokin' around, colonel? Weren't you always caught up in bein' a stuck-up, workaholic wowser nowadays?"

Shepard made a tiny, wry smile. "Just a little morale-boost, Lewis. We're about to meet with the enemy, so I suggest both of you head over to your positions now, before they arrive."

Lewis stood up and picked up his alloy cannon leaning on a wall, while Nicoletta quietly heeded her orders.

"Yes, your fuckin' majesty, right away." The agent smirked as he mock-saluted his superior, before running off to take the elevator to the lower floors, where aliens would be expected to enter later.

Shepard slowly strolled up to the edge of the floor before contacting another person. "Hammerhead, this is Kodiak. My men are prepared to proceed with phase three. What's the word on your end?"

General Williams quickly responded, "We're almost all set over here, Shepard. Did Thierfelder deliver?"

"She delivered, alright. The alien general is under her control, and she used it to order an assault on our fortified position." The colonel said, standing over in front of a large glass window, with a perfect view of the city streets below. It was a good defensive position, perhaps good enough to last a long while under a full fledged siege.

"We're lucky these aliens weren't as advanced as I imagined. My original plan was to rig the city with explosives, lure them in with a force of expendable assets and then detonate a full-scaled plasma explosion in the middle of the city. Now, I think we _might _just be able fight them off..."

"I've been _dying_ to use the new toys we unearthed from your base, colonel." Williams said. He couldn't help but let his excitement be known through his voice. "I may get carried away at one point, so it's a good thing I ordered my men to also start taking orders from you now. Lead them well, spook."

"We'll see." The colonel cut comms. With a sigh, he reeled a gauntleted fist back and smashed the glass window in front of him into pieces, giving him a clear line of fire for a firearm.

Two CARD operatives appeared, carrying a dismantled plasma repeater turret over to Shepard. "Are you Colonel Shepard, sir?" One of them inquired the colonel, who nodded. "Well sir, Jericho and I are here to act as a heavy machine gun team - keep the aliens from breaching the doors and entering the building. This is the best position to cover the streets, so if you don't mind, we need to set this turret up here."

The colonel stepped aside, as the operatives took up his previous position. He wasn't about to object, having been armed only with a ranged weapon that's only lethal at medium to close range and virtually worthless at longer ranges, whereas the HMG team had a repeater turret to work with.

"Colonel, are you perhaps occupied right now?" One of the operatives stopped Shepard just as he was about to head off to the lower levels with Lewis. "We could use a spotter, to mark important targets we can divert our attention to." He nervously scratched the back of his neck. "There used to be three of us, but I guess our old spotter deserted the agency when she heard we're up against aliens."

"Alright," Shepard nodded, and the operative handed him a laser sniper rifle with several peculiar attachments and modifications adorning it. "This is grunt work, but there's nothing else I'd rather do."

"Thank you, colonel. We'd normally ask someone like us to help us out, but we're low on manpower, and our time is quickly running out," The CARD operative said. "Just leave the killing to us - you only need to highlight priority targets for our gun."

The three men quickly organized themselves, with Shepard helping with setting the plasma turret up. After they placed sandbags around the turret, they waited in silence for the aliens to arrive, and soon enough, the first of the enemy soldiers arrived in sight, warily navigating the rubble-strewn streets.

"Contacts, alien infantry." Someone in the comms muttered. "No vehicles so far... this is probably the advance force."

Another person was heard spitting on the ground. "Ugly sons-a-bitches, they are. I'd carve one a pretty face once I get my hands on 'em."

"I'd go further than carving, Ludwig." And another one with a thick Eastern European accent said, apparently in response to the second voice. "I wonder how they'd taste like when grilled, covered in yogurt, mixed with rum, garam masala and turmeric. Heheh, can't wait to start the grill back in the _Takeda _\- anyone in for an alien barbecue?"

Several people started chuckling in the comms. "I was being completely serious, you guys. Wait until you've tried out my cloned muton kebab-" The third voice continued, but was drowned out in laughter.

"Alright, cut that demented chatter," Shepard had to interrupt. "If you have nothing important to report, keep off the damned air for someone who does!"

Complete silence answered the colonel - music to his ears. Without much ado, he peered down his rifle's scope and observed his turian targets with an augmented eye.

. . .

**_Decius-Spurius Sector Grid H-23, Unknown Alien Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 0950 hours_**

**_Major Adrien Victus - general's adjutant_**

"General Arterius, this is absurd!" Major Victus, an unbloodied officer in the Hierarchical Navy, spoke tersely through the commlink. "We're exposing ourselves to an ambush! If we don't find cover now, we'll all be obliterated!"

There was a brief burst of static. "Everything is under control, major. The aliens suspect us to be further up northeast, so we have the advantage of surprise." Victus was getting sick of hearing Desolas' flat monotone. If there weren't such strict protocols against doubting or opposing superior officers, the major would've taken control of the marines and had them do something less insane, like blundering into an area reported to be where several armored companies just 'vanished' into thin air.

"Ghargh, for the love of..." He committed his very first act of disrespect towards a superior officer by abruptly cutting comms. "Legionaries, we've just been ordered to push forwa-" There was a very noticable _click_.

Victus was flung into the air when the small building he walked past by suddenly erupted in a green explosion, vaporizing his second-in-command and several others caught in the radius outright. He crashed to the ground with a pained grunt, his armored form covered in mild plasma burns.

"Taking small-arms fire!" One of the men shouted as shots came flying from all directions. "Head to cover!"

As he writhed on the pavement, horribly disoriented and in no small amount of pain, the major felt his ears ring painfully. They barely registered the sounds of gunfire, screaming and explosions as conflict between his race and the aliens sparked again. Major Victus gasped in a breath as he flailed around and reached for his rifle. As he made to stand up, one of his marines moved in to help him.

"Major, we're under attack!" The marine, a large man by the name of Avitus, said. "What is it you need us to do?!"

Victus forcefully shook his head, banishing his unfocused state. "Spirits, we're getting slaughtered out here! We need to find some cover right n-"

A flash of green light temporarily blinded Victus' eyes. He quickly regained his vision to find Avitus clutching at his shoulders, with a blank, rather surprised look on his youthful face. Victus clenched his teeth in anger and irritation as he grabbed hold of the marine's collar and quite literally manhandled him to cover, callously shoving him to the ground behind a ruined wall.

"What the hell were you thinking standing around like that?" Victus vented his frustration on the marine as he hunkered down under the wall's protection. Everywhere around him, his men desperately tried to find what sparse cover they could find against unseen attackers shooting from elevated positions in the tall buildings and the rooftops. Already, almost forty marines were killed before the fighting even properly started.

_These bastards are damned professionals, _Victus observed, taking note of their inexplicably precise plasma fire. If anything, the alien force he was up against made for better marksmen than the ones General Severus' forces engaged.

"Marine? You still listening?" Victus turned to look at Avitus, when he realized he hadn't responded. He sighed in further despair and exasperation when he caught sight of the unresponsive marine's back, which was marked by a horrifying plasma burn that dissolved most of his back and burned a wide, gaping hole that ate away at his flesh, guaranteeing a quick yet excruciatingly painful end for poor Avitus.

Risking the same death that befell the marine, Victus poked his head out of cover, spotting a building that spewed a prodigious amount of plasma fire onto the turian-occupied streets below, keeping the marines down and vulnerable from a flanking attack carried out on the ground.

Victus glared at the sealed entrance to the building, preventing marines from breaching it and slaughtering the underhanded aliens inside. _No matter,_ he thought. _This looks like a job for the Navy._

_. . ._

**_Swanson and Mallory Court Solutions Floor #7, New Larkintown City Center, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1000 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard_**

"Taking some heat down here at the intersection, but we got it under control for now," An agent reported over the comms. Marksman plasma discharges could be heard booming with his voice. "We're keeping them suppressed, but I have no idea when they'll wise up and start counterattacking."

"The east end of Langley Street's secure - all hostiles eliminated, but we lost a man." And another one said. "We'll attempt to keep the perimeter free from aliens for as long as we can. What's taking Hammerhead so long?"

"Kosciuszko Square's perimeter is definitely _not _secure," A CARD operative's voice came in last. "We're taking the full brunt of an armored assault here, and we've lost more than eleven of our soldiers to sniper and IFV fire. More of them's on the way; I don't know how long we'll last out here!"

Shepard regretted not assigning some of his men with the spies. They were good at intrigue, but were only a little better trained and equipped for war than the average Federal soldier. "Stand by, Gatecrasher. Hammerhead's on the way to relieve us-"

"Incoming orbital strike! Hit the fucking deck!" The two CARD support gunners Shepard was assisting suddenly bolted from their gun and dived down under a conference table further inside the office floor.

Shepard quickly dropped comms and ran after his fellow men, but was a few seconds late from taking cover as the Swanson-Mallory structure buckled and quaked violently, reeling from a small-scale mass-accelerated attack on the lower floors. The colonel was swept off his feet and his armored body was sent sliding off to the edge of the building as it teetered to one side. He watched helplessly as his highlighter rifle fell off the side and shattered into pieces as it impacted the pavement below, exploding only two seconds later.

Hanging on by one gauntlet, Shepard knew that it was futile to try and pull himself up. He was a pathetically easy target for enemy marksmen as he did so, and he wasn't even sure he'd be successful in his attempt - his augmented skeletal structure coupled with his heavy exoframe and arsenal weighed him down significantly, even with enhanced strength.

_Good thing I had some upgrades,_ the colonel kept a cool head as he opened up a commlink to Lewis. "Postman, change of plans! Have some of the men file out the building - Gatecrasher's in trouble!"

"What the _fuck, _Shepard!" Lewis' frantic voice responded. "They just eighty-six'd the main entrance with a bloody precision shell from a fucking frigate, and the upper half of the structure started to lean over to the southeast like that Pisan tower! They'll come for us any moment now, I repeat, the x-rays are coming!"

Shepard held in a breath as he let himself fall to earth, just as small-arms fire started to whiz past his sides. His dark armored form plummeted the heights, past the floors and the agents manning them. Just when he passed by the third floor, Shepard righted himself and activated his suit's integrated thrusters, slowing his descent enough to prevent breaking his legs as his ironclad boots struck the pavement.

Several turian troops shouted in alarm at the sight of an exoframed, gas-masked human appearing right in their midst from the dust cloud he conjured, brandishing a compacted assault rifle in one gauntleted hand, and a strange block of metal strapped to the other. The colonel was as silent as could be as he drew his gun, in contrast.

The aliens hurriedly tried to reposition, but not before Shepard fired several lightning-fast, three-shot plasma bursts from his gun. Half a dozen of the aliens caught out of cover were quickly devoured by flames before they could even respond, and another three were ruthlessly killed when Shepard incinerated their cover and peppered their defenseless forms with energy weapons fire.

The colonel's shock tactic would've sent most opponents falling back in panic, but not the turians. Three aliens with shotguns advanced on the XCOM agent, while several others with assault rifles and submachine-guns jumped out of cover and tried overwhelming him with mass-accelerated fire, providing their comrades with covering fire.

However, much to the aliens' shock, their attacks were rendered pathetically ineffective when Shepard protected himself with the block of steel was holding, which suddenly expanded itself in size; sheets of Ilyushinite alloy emerged from the object's corners and locked themselves together into place, forming an electrified, tall and rectangular, inwardly curved riot shield.

How could a glorified slab of energy-wreathed metal be capable of halting bullets traveling at absurd speeds baffled the turians to no end. They doubled their fire and started utilizing incinerate-type omni-tool attacks, but the Ilyushinite shield refused to break apart, or be penetrated.

Shepard on the other hand, had little problems poking his assault rifle to the side and gunning down the aliens in turn, and the aliens quickly dwindled in numbers as the colonel dispatched them in a punctual, clockwork-like manner - unhindered by his reduced line of sight. Pure, unbridled terror was sown into the alien ranks as the XCOM agent pushed forward, incinerating their comrades left and right with precise plasma fire like a man possessed.

It didn't help that he appeared like a creature straight from a nightmare; with a hulking frame, an intimidating gas-mask with circular, opaque eye sockets that appeared completely devoid of feeling or soul, and a dark-gray exoframe pattern that never appeared to show obvious signs of being severely damaged when shot at with small arms.

In due course, Shepard had killed over thirty-eight hostiles in the course of three minutes and horribly maimed several more. The turians started to back away from his advance, only to quickly return with even more numbers at their side, intent on swarming him with armor-piercing sniper rifles and fiery tech attacks. Even a hovertank started unloading its secondary weapons at the colonel, wrongly thinking it overkill to resort to using the main gun.

The colonel knew that odds were now stacked against him with that kind of firepower on the aliens' side. He was just about to ditch his shield and run off to cover, when he heard Lewis shout into the comms, "Weapons free!"

A blaster launcher projectile tore apart the alien vehicle, just as a hail of plasma and alloy cannon fire rent any infantry support attacking the colonel asunder. The turian soldiers turned to return fire on Lewis' strike team, which was enough of a distraction for Shepard to get close to the enemy ranks. With his assault rifle stashed away in favor of his weapon-of-choice, Shepard swiftly decapitated an alien soldier with a practiced, sidewards swing, making him the first human to kill a turian with the Tyrant-pattern shockblade - a segmented, folding longsword veiled in a corona of electrical energies.

Before the aliens could even properly notice him, Shepard had already forcefully struck his powered shield onto an enemy soldier's side, which swept it off its feet when an electrostatic discharge entered its ill-protected body and fried its insides, painfully fusing them together. What once was a shotgun-wielding sergeant in the turian navy was now a horrid, blackened mess stuck to the pavement.

The colonel gruesomely dismembered another soldier by sweeping its legs from under it with the searing edge of his blade and snapped another surprised alien's neck by forcing its head inwards with his electrified shield. A turian officer turned to its side and got the second-worst shock of its life when it found an alien soldier beside it, about to cleave it in two with a searing longsword raised up in the air.

Shepard then bisected the officer's head along with its rifle as it tried to foolishly block his downward slashing attack by lifting its gun up, and finally, he cleaved straight into a close pair of enemy soldiers with one exceedingly powerful diagonal swing, felling a total of seven turians in rapid succession in a little over ten seconds.

The turians acted surprised to see the colonel within melee range already, but were smart enough to know that sticking around in close-quarters-combat with Shepard was a terrible idea. They quickly tried to turn tail and evade the sword-wielding human, but in the process, exposed themselves to Lewis' team. Morale plummeted for the aliens as they took massive losses for nothing, and soon, the survivors broke and routed.

"How the hell did you get here, Shepard?" Lewis inquired as he and eighteen other agents approached the colonel, as the turians dispersed. "Weren't you at the seventh floor?"

"It's a long story, but my suit's got a new thruster module. Right now, we need to relieve Gatecrasher." Shepard replied, after a while. Catching his breath, the colonel promptly contacted General Williams.

"Hammerhead, what's taking you so long? We'll be overrun if you don't-"

"Sorry, Kodiak. I had to take some extra toys with me." Williams responded, with a voice that seemed distorted and tinny. "How's it looking out there?"

Shepard was unamused. "What the hell do you think, old man? We've already given you the prototype enchanted Juggernaut MEC and the Deconstructor sledge, they should be more than enough for the job already!"

"I reckon I should take the Devastator for a test run," Williams said, to Shepard's mild surprise. The Devastator had extremely powerful guns that could even shoot down minor space-faring vessels in orbit, but it had armor like paper, so the colonel had previously suggested dismantling the warmachine's guns and mounting them on a vehicle that's less likely to be destroyed with concentrated small-arms fire.

Shepard just didn't expect Williams to actually pilot it into battle.

"It was a bitch to try fitting a prototype cybersuit into this thing, but we managed it. I'm piloting it right..." A large salvo of rockets flew overhead the XCOM agents, striking different parts of the city where turians were presumed to be holding makeshift bases. "...now."

The general laughed menacingly, just as the first of the Federal reinforcements came into view. Federal marines and colonial volunteers numbering in over a thousand men and women plus nine sectopods, sixty-four MEC troopers and a large swarm of Seeker droids advanced forwards, retaking lost ground and relieving the besieged XCOM and CARD garrisons.

"Missile cams determine two-hundred dead aliens from that rocket barrage alone, ehum." Williams also appeared, now in the cockpit of a hulking, highly-intimidating Devastator sectopod. The oversized gun platform bashed aside and stomped over any obstacles in its way as it lumbered along with the Federation's soldiers.

"Now that I'm here, let's see what this baby's _really_ got." The general pulled a lever on the Devastator's console, causing a thick, orange beam from his warmachine's downscaled Godfinger fusion lance to obliterate an entire unit of eleven turian marines plus three hovertanks.

"Heheheh, I'll never get tired of this shit!" The Devastator stomped over a turian IFV's scorched husk, flattening it. "Drive them back, men! No fucking quarter!"

. . .

**_In orbit of Unknown Alien Colony, Command Bridge, HWS Indefatigable_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1015 hours_**

**_Admiral Lina_**

"Three walkers and eleven dismounts out in the open! Engage!" Lina heard Victus' panic-stricken voice coming from her console. "They're closing in! Hold the spirits-damned line, men!"

"I'm sending in more tanks and marine APCs to reinforce you, major." General Desolas chimed in, sounding extremely calm in contrast to the major. "Our firelance squadrons are experiencing severe technical difficulties, keep holding your position until we can send them to provide close air support, over."

"Oh, you've gotta be _fucking _kidding me!" Came the major's exasperated response. "Any second more, and they'll be right on top of us! Air support needs to hurry it up, or you can write us off as good as fucking dead!"

Lina was concerned at the progress the landing force was making. She heard that General Severus was vaporized when his command vehicle was destroyed by enemy plasma fire, and Air Marshal Caracalla was shot down by black exoframed commandos before he could even reach the city proper. Now, General Desolas was acting very strange; he issued tactically unsound orders and willingly assaulted heavily fortified alien positions with inadequate numbers or without air and armor support, letting several of his soldiers die in the process.

She had heard enough, the admiral must act. "General Arterius, as the person in charge of this operation, I'm deeming you unfit for command. Step down immediately and submit to-"

There was a sharp crackle of static, indicating that Desolas willingly or accidentally cut comms with the admiral. Annoyed, Lina looked to her console and checked for the commlink status between her ship and the landing forces. To her horror, she found that Desolas did more than just cut the comms - he apparently severed all communications between the marines and the orbiting vessels, which meant that an unstable officer was left to take charge of his men.

The admiral clenched her fists and struggled to calm herself. Slowly and assuredly, the situation was slipping out of her grasp. Just when things started to look up, some unforeseen problem or unexpectedly heavy resistance from the alien defenders kept victory at bay.

"Ma'am, our reinforcements have just arrived from the 314 relay," One of the bridge crew reported, much to Lina's relief and trepidation. She _wanted _to be positive about her ordeal, but she kept expecting something to go wrong immediately. "I'm patching you through to Admiral Sorex now."

Lina put a talon over her comm-bead. "This is Admiral Aureliana Nandrakan, of the Draius Ferlodinus Legion. Welcome aboard, Admiral Sor-"

"Admiral Nandrakan, we need your assistance _immediately_!" Lina was cut off again. Admiral Sorex sounded panicked and terrified, confirming her fears. "On our way here, we've been intercepted by an unknown hostile fleet; we only stayed locked in combat for half a minute, but my fleet's already taken heavy losses! We need support right now!"

The admiral sighed harshly. She looked to her console again and took a closer look on her reinforcements. Sure enough, Admiral Sorex's fleet appeared severely battered, with countless plasma scorch marks dotting the cruisers and most prominently, the dreadnought.

Lina supposed she shouldn't surprised; Admiral Sorex was but one of the many inexperienced naval officers in the Hierarchy's navy, sent to the alien colony to gain valuable combat experience in what appeared to be a typical first-contact engagement. Sorex probably expected to come and shoot a few primitive cruisers out of the void and then bomb some hapless targets planetside, which was what normally went down in assignments like the one they were in. Lina couldn't blame him, she reasoned - she was just as shocked as Sorex was.

"Solid copy, admiral. I'm moving my fleet to provide assistance. How large is the enemy fleet?" The admiral almost dreaded asking that particular question.

In response to her question, Relay 314 started spinning very wildly and rapidly, an sure-fire indication of a very large group of vessels approaching the star system. "O-oh, Spirits..." Sorex nervously gasped out.

Much like how bullets came out of a gun, alien vessels started appearing out of the secondary relay in rapid succession, starting with frigates, cruisers and finally, the dreadnoughts. There even was a peculiarly-shaped vessel that momentarily appeared, but immediately vanished from sight a second later. The alien ships were segregated from one another by the colors adorning them; with one large half of the enemy fleet painted beige and gray, and the smaller half sporting dark blue and forest green paint.

"Seven-hundred contacts and counting, ma'am! Three-hundred and fifty plus cruiser-types, thirteen dreadnought-sized vessels and four-hundred frigates!" Lina's XO reported, his words failing to hide his anxiousness and unease. "Spirits, that's a lot... s-should we move in to engage?"

The admiral's mandibles flared as she clenched her teeth together. "You're goddamn right we're moving in." She immediately headed to her console as she issued orders to the bridge crew left and right. "Shipmasters, I want this entire fucking fleet under Unyielding Colossus doctrine, now! Gunners, commence the attack when ready! Navigators, full speed ahead! Legion, engage the enemy!"

. . .

**_Decius Sector Grid H-21, Unknown Alien Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1030 hours_**

**_Major Victus_**

"Admiral, are you receiving me?!" Victus repeatedly screamed into the comms. The major had to peek out of cover and contribute his assault rifle fire at an approaching enemy squad. "Admiral Aureliana, what the fuck's going on up there? For the Spirits' sake, I need another danger close orbital strike concentrated on the coordinates I gave you!"

"The treasonous Admiral Nandrakan has severed all communications with the entire landing force. It's all up to us, now." General Desolas was the only person to answer the major on the comms.

Victus recoiled in surprise at the general's words. It wasn't like the admiral to suddenly abandon her planetside forces for seemingly no reason; he served under her command long enough to know that she deeply cared for the state and well-being of her subordinates, and even under the pressure of death, she always kept her head.

"Alien infantry, four o'clock! Over in the open!"

Victus turned his head and came upon the sight of a large horde of aliens in bone-white exoframes, advancing rapidly forwards and strangely, neglecting to take cover when the marines frantically responded by opening fire. They didn't appear to carry any weapons either, seemingly running into turian rifles with nothing but their bare hands and their armor.

"Well, don't just stand there! Kill them all!" The major switched his gun to fire semi-automatically before letting loose a hail of bullets on the approaching infantry, uncaring of the fact that they have no weapons. He felt his words sound rather exhausted, but to his surprise, also filled with hatred.

The aliens willingly dived headfirst into the combined turian assault, even as tanks and armored vehicles started contributing their guns to the fray. They appeared either very brave or suicidal with how nonchalant they threw themselves to their deaths.

Several of them crumbled and fell after being hosed down by too much enemy fire, and more died when they found themselves struck directly by explosive shells. Still, the vast majority of them never slowed their menacing pace, and soon after they reached a close enough distance, Victus discovered that the aliens weren't unarmed after all; they possessed large pairs of gauntlets that concealed sliding rings of electrified spikes, for use in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

When the first alien berserker reached its first turian victim, it skewered the marine with both spiked gauntlets, using the momentum it acquired from its charging sprint. The energy-wreathed blades easily penetrated the unfortunate soldier's armor, carapace and flesh, burning her insides to cinders. Disposing of its victim by quite literally ribboning her corpse apart, the berserker started noticeably giggling, almost in a childlike manner.

Shellshocked from witnessing an unnecessarily brutal death of a comrade, Victus and his marines acted too late to defend themselves from more incoming berserkers. Another one of them obliterated a ruined wall in its path and systematically hacked the four turian soldiers hiding behind it apart in a similarly gruesome manner, slicing off limbs and decapitating heads. Like the first berserker, this one also started laughing with one kill after another, sounding more and more unhinged as it cleaved through hapless turian infantry.

"Screw this shit, we'll be overrun! Retreat!" A marine screamed as he ran away from combat, abandoning his wavering squad just as it came into melee range with three berserkers.

"No! Hold your damn ground and drive them back, legionaries! Stand! FIRM!" Victus desperately cried out as more and more of his marines started breaking off from their assigned units and fleeing, all while the aliens continued mercilessly butchering turians in rapid succession. Groups of them working in tandem, with some even neutralizing armored vehicles by cleaving through the hulls and butchering the screaming, horrified crew inside.

Total chaos was the order of the day on that bloodied section of the alien city. Standing up to the alien berserkers in close quarters combat was tantamount to suicide, and the rubble-strewn, ruined nature of the colony meant that there was very little room to maneuver. With each marine killed, it seemed that the berserkers collectively grew stronger, faster and more vicious - and more worriedly, they even started to breath out orange smoke.

"Stand your ground! No retreat, no surrender!" Victus, like every good officer of the Hierarchy, was poised to go down for the cause.

The situation appeared very bleak, the marines did not possess the right weapons for the job, but fortunately for the major and his men, the Firelance jet fighter's arsenal proved sufficient. Clusters of alien berserkers were either vaporized or hosed hosed down by the droves with missiles and rapid machine-gun fire from Firelances zooming overhead. The wounded survivors were quickly finished off when more Hierarchy tanks showed up.

Victus would've breathed out a sigh of relief now that Desolas' promised air support finally arrived, but seeing the carnage they wrought upon the enemy, he could clearly observe hapless marines caught out in the open being killed by their own fighter jets via suspiciously precise friendly fire, always through explosives.

"Desolas!" The major shouted into the comms. "Your spirits-damned fighters are shooting at my men!"

"A necessary sacrifice," General Desolas calmly responded. "They stood too close to the enemy, you of all people should expect friendly fire is to be more than likely."

_There's something _seriously_ wrong with Arterius_, the marine officer thought to himself. "What would you have us do, then? This sector's about to be overrun, we need to fall back to the outskirts and hold them until the Mondranor Legion arrives!"

"Negative on that, major. This situation's well under our control." Desolas responded, and Victus swore he completely lost touch with reality. "I'm about to send more Firelances to your position, they'll provide you with the means to push-"

"To hell with pushing!" Victus interrupted the general. "Our forces are vastly outmatched, we can't hold them back without orbital support and we both goddamn well know it!" He dropped comms and looked to his men. "Legionaries, abandon positions! Pull back to the-"

Suddenly, Victus found himself on the receiving end of his own marines' gun barrels. He was at a woeful loss for words when they suddenly opened fire, ripping his kinetic shields completely apart and leaving him with severe bullet-wounds on his legs and upper torso. It was nothing short of miraculous that Victus found himself facing the dusty ground, bleeding out but still barely alive.

The major looked up and through his blurred, rapidly-fading vision, came across the sight of his fallen rifle, buried under a thin layer of rubble. He didn't hesitate to try and reach for the gun, only to be stopped when a turian marine's boot stomped on his outstretched, bloodied arm, followed by another stomp to the back of his head. Victus' head struck the ground once more, with much more force.

While in the process of being hauled to some unknown destination and on the edge of consciousness, Victus struggled to make out the foreign words being spoken by the traitorous marines. Strange, the language they spoke sounded almost completely alien to his ears.

. . .

**_Kucioszko Square, New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1040 hours_**

**_Sayida Minna - businesswoman, musician, scholar, museum curator, EXALT deep-cover agent_**

"Unconscious?" She inquired, looking at the alien's unmoving body laid across a blood-stained stretcher.

He nodded disinterestedly, not looking up from relaxing on his seat in the shuttle and reading a file on his omni-tool. "He don't look like it, but yeah." He accessed another folder, continuing with his read. "That's affirmative, he ain't coming up any time soon... the mindjacked exxies made sure of that."

"But will he _live_? I read his mind - he's an officer of some kind, not like the surplus ones we've hauled back to the shuttle." She folded her arms, putting her weight on one foot. "He'll be much useful to our cause alive, rather than dead."

"What, with that kind of wounds all over his body? Hm, probably not." He shook his head and scratched at his scarred cheek. "But hey, since he's already in this state, we might as well use this to our advantage. His guts and body fluids should be nothing like anyone's ever seen before, so they should fetch a high price from my contacts in the gray market at least until XCOM starts selling them in bulk. The director loves doing that."

She took a few more moments to herself before she made a decision. Opening up a communications link to EXALT's Shanxi cell headquarters, Minna spoke, "VOX, Regent here,"

"Whoa, whoa, what do you think you're doing, sis?" Paxton suddenly dropped his omni-tool, standing up from his seat and looking at his half-sibling intently. "Don't tell me you're bringing our haul back to headquarters - the profits we'll make from the gray market will be _obscene_ if we sold the assets to them!"

Minna frowned, brushing away a lock of black hair from her right eye. "Maybe you should stick to banking and teaching high school economics to teenagers. According to our moles inside XCOM and the Council of Systems, by the end of the day, the alien hunters will have acquired plenty of new xenotech to reverse-engineer - we must not waste the chance to even the playing field against them."

"Aw, come on." Paxton dropped his glare, looking to the side. "I'm all for bringing down His Imperial Majesty Lazarenko's Gestapo two-point-oh, but I'd really rather just earn credits when it came down to it. Actually, most of us joined this outfit to get rich, not pledge ourselves to a dead plutocrat's idiotic cause."

Minna ignored Paxton. She'd have already slit his throat if it weren't for the fact that they were related somewhat. "VOX, are you still there?" She talked through the commlink she opened.

"VOX is always listening. VOX is always watching." A synthetic droning voice came through. "Be advised, Overlook has deducted ten-thousand Federation standard credits from Jester's paycheck. Reasons: ugliness; subtle displays of disloyalty to EXALT's noble cause."

"Fuckin' hell." Paxton kicked a nearby Meld canister in anger. "You wry, spying piece of Ilyushinite shit, I'll jam a plasma knife so far up your motherboard, you'll-"

"Thirty-eight thousand credits." VOX nonchalantly chimed in. "Reasons: stupidity; making feeble and empty threats to EXALT hardware; _extremely_ subtle displays of disloyalty to EXALT's noble cause."

Paxton groaned and kept silent after that. Minna smirked and continued, "VOX, tell Overlook that our cell in New Larkintown had to abandon previous track and report directives in order to capture alien tech and live personnel. Alert the perimeter guards, Jester and I will be making an appearance _very_ soon..."

. . .

**_New Larkintown Proper, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1105 hours_**

**_Colonel Thierfelder_**

"Looks like you're making some good progress..." Karlotte kept in contact with Shepard on the radio. She and her FARSIGHT team took positions under the shadows of the ruined city, away from most of the heavy fighting but closely tailing the alien leader's command hovertank. "I'm looking at Agent Philmore's helmet cams - the berserkers just got taken out, but they did plenty of nasty work out there..."

"There goes the rest of the expendable assets, then." Shepard said, his voice interweaves with static and gunfire. "How about you, do you still have the alien general at your disposal? We could use another blunder to our advantage right now."

The FARSIGHT colonel frowned. "Not as well as I do minutes ago. He's slowly starting to question the hallucinations and suggestions I'm planting in his mind, and I'm afraid his will is too weak to withstand my full psionic might. There's a chance he'd go comatose if I try subjugating him with brute force."

"It's just an alien, Karlotte." The other colonel started after a quick pause and a round of plasma fire. "It came here to kill or abduct civilians and conquer this colony in the name of whatever higher power it answered to. If it died because it can't take the psionic pressure, I doubt any of us will lose any sleep tonight. Do it."

Karlotte couldn't argue with Shepard. "It's a shame, I was really looking forward to seeing this guy in a containment facility in Schultz. Always wanted a turian pet..." With that said, she left the channel and focused her efforts on mind-controlling General Desolas, of the Turian Hierarchy.

. . .

**_Kuciuszko Square, New Larkintown_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1120 hours_**

**_General Williams_**

"For God's sake, what's taking Theirfelder with that blunder so long? We need to break through the alien line and push them out of the city, now!"

The aliens were finally driven out of the city center and to the outskirts, but to the shock of every human there, the enemy have had already entrenched countless turrets, garrisoned buidlings and erected other fortifications there. As a result, the relentless human advance had been slowed to a grinding halt - the retreating aliens were given more than enough of a fighting chance to turn the tide back once more.

"Keep patient, Williams!" Shepard answered over the comms. "She'll give us an update soon; it's only been fifteen minutes!"

Williams had earlier given Shepard command of his men, and he proved a decent enough commander. However, the colonel obviously lacked experience when leading units larger than a platoon, and right now, he hesitated to make bold moves that Williams would've already attempted minutes earlier, like make a shock-and-awe styled assault on the main enemy battle line. It was all too obvious that the colonel didn't like to lose men, most likely because his soldiers were much less expendable compared to Federal marines.

"Son, the longer we sit here and let them use those turrets, the more men I'm losing because of your indecision!" The general's temper slowly rose. "Tell your damn girlfriend to-"

"I... I think I just messed up," Suddenly, Karlotte's voice entered the comms. "I'm sorry. I should've put less pressure on him and-"

"Karlotte, relax. Take it slow, and tell us what you want to say." Shepard calmly and placatingly said, but the urgency and businesslike tone of his voice betraying his true emotions.

Through the static and the other noises in the background, Karlotte could be heard hyperventilating a little in exhaustion. "The alien general has died, and the turians have probably already reorganized themselves with a new, better leader. I'm sorry to say, but that blunder won't be coming any time soon."

Williams had heard enough. "Alright, fuck this. You wanna see how old bastards like me get shit done? I'll show you kids how a _real_ soldier fights a goddamn war!" Angrily, the general logged off the comms.

With one pull of a lever, Williams' prototype sectopod lurched forwards, startling the Federal marines standing guard in front of it. Have they neglected to move out of the warmachine's way, they would've gotten squashed under its Ilyushinite soles.

Ponderously, the sectopod left the designated safezone and stomped its way to the frontlines. The friendly soldiers it crossed paths with could do nothing as it carelessly exposed itself to enemy small arms and missile fire, and contrary to Shepard's fears, the warmachine held firm and Williams in his cybersuit inside remained unharmed.

"You fucked with the wrong race!" Williams had his sectopod level its entire arsenal over a tall building garrisoned by alien infantry. Half a dozen buttons have to be pushed and more switches flipped before Williams unleashed the terrifying might of his warmachine.

Tightly-packed pods of blaster launcher missiles, massive, globular bolts of plasma and even a miniaturized ship-mounted fusion lance beam quite literally tore the target building apart, blowing off Ilyushinite and concrete chunks, vaporizing entire floors and reducing the adjacent area into a scorched, heavily irradiated wasteland.

"For the president!" Williams continued to advance, above such inane concepts as fear and caution.

. . .

**_Ajax-Tuksan Sector Grid D-09, Unknown Alien Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1130 hours_**

**_Lieutenant Arterius_**

Saren slowly woke up to the sound of screaming. He found himself inside a medical vehicle.

"Spirits, what the fuck! What the fuck!" Someone outside shouted in panic.

"Tanks! WHERE ARE THE BLOODY TANKS?!" Someone else screamed into the air.

The lieutenant still knew not why he fell unconscious, but he started to think he was better off that way. He stood up from his cot, coming upon the sight of one of the medics that attended to him.

"Lieutenant Arterius?" She also stood up, holding both hands placatingly. "You mustn't be moving so much, you should-"

"Just a damn migraine. I'm fine." Rather more grumpily than intended, Saren responded. He quickly moved off his cot and retrieved his assault rifle lying on a nearby table. "What the hell's going on outside?"

"I'm not gonna lie - things are bad and slowly getting worse, lieutenant." The medic informed. "Your brother flew off the handle and led us to disaster - over four-thousand of us... mercilessly butchered by soldiers in powered armor and walking tanks. This endeavor's on its last legs, Saren."

The lieutenant felt his stomach lurch. It wasn't in character for Desolas to suddenly do what the medic just said. "Is he alive, still? Last I saw Desolas, he was driving his tank into a heavily-defended area."

The medic mournfully shook her head. "Nobody knows where he is right now. He's probably still alive, but the chances are..."

Saren didn't let her finish. He quietly left the vehicle, coming upon the familiar landscape of the ruined alien city, but this time, his surroundings were teeming with turian marines scurrying about and nervously huddling under sandbags and makeshift bunkers, and there were several long-barreled heavy turrets firing off into the distance at some unseen foes.

The instant Saren reached a close enough distance to the frontlines, an alien plasma missile barrage took several tanks and some of the turrets out of commission, including the medical vehicle he was in moments before. Looking at the destruction being wrought upon the tattered remnants of the legion landing force, Saren knew that his race wasn't fighting against mere savages.

"Lieutenant!" Saren turned to his side at the source of the voice, seeing a lower-ranked general with his retinue waving at him from behind a fortified metal wall. "Get your ass over here and out of the open, it's not safe there!"

Not needing to be asked twice, Saren sprinted the distance between himself and his superior officer. He had to carefully navigate a battered landscape of rubble, burning wreckage and abandoned civilian vehicles on the way.

"Lieutenant, where the _fuck _have you been?" The general, a long time subordinate of General Severus named Zeliszek, glared murderously at Saren as he approached cover. "Your brother screwed us _completely_ over, and now we've-"

"With all due respect, sir..." The lieutenant interjected rather curtly. "I was knocked unconscious for several hours, and yes, I think already know what happened during that time. What I don't know is just _what_ the turrets are firing at over there."

"They're shooting the enemy, that's what matters." Zeliszek then indicated at a large group of entrenched artillery vehicles some distance away, discharging explosive shells in a synchronized fashion. "But those guns over there have the most important target: the toughest walker we've ever encountered so far. Just a minute ago, it fucking vaporized an entire spirits-damned alien alloyed structure like it was _nothing_."

Zeliszek pointed a talon at the wall behind him. "Climb up the ladder and take a look for yourself. That damned walker's giving us more trouble alone than the entire alien front itself."

Saren took a deep breath and ascended to the top of the metal wall, which included several relatively large nests for snipers and perimeter guardsmen to take cover in. There were multiple stacks of spare firearms and other supplies scattered along the area, as well as mounted anti-materiel sniper rifles for use against tanks and the like.

"Look, it's that idiot Desolas' barefaced brother." As he walked across the fortified wall, the lieutenant heard one of the snipers talking under his breath as he passed by.

"Where the hell was he when the general went insane? He _must_ have ran from combat."

"Yeah, that's probably what he did. What a barefaced coward - a poor excuse for a lieutenant."

Saren kept walking, ignoring the whispers. They could've kept shooting at enemy flankers, but it appears that muttering insults was a matter that took more priority. The lieutenant was as silent as could be as he took position inside one of the sniper nests, discarding his assault rifle for a mounted anti-materiel rifle overlooking the battlefield.

The lieutenant could barely see anything below the field, because there was a thick, lingering cloud of black smoke that veiled the ruined cityscape. Switching his visor to thermal vision, he then peered through the scope and immediately felt shock at what he saw.

Decidedly alien signatures were practically everywhere in sight, filling Saren's vision with plenty of orange and red hues. Looking downwards, he could see turian forces valiantly trying to hold back the alien tide, but he could clearly see that they're on the losing side.

A quartet of turian gunships passed by Saren's position above, causing him to remove his sights from the scope to look up at them. He observed the aircraft descend into the battlefield, emptying their guns and missile pods at a target obscured by the smoke clouds below.

The lieutenant made a nonchalant scoffing sound. Four gunships against a single target seemed overkill to him, until those same gunships were suddenly engulfed in a massive energy explosion, making the sky rain with tiny bits of wreckage and temporarily blinding the lieutenant, nearly causing him to topple over the side of the wall.

Once he regained his vision, Saren hurriedly returned to his rifle and looked down the scope, scanning the battlefield in a panicked, disordered manner in an effort to determine the entity that so easily blasted four gunships out of the sky seconds earlier.

He ignored the panicked shouts filling his comms channel and the hail of gunship wreckage that could easily kill him if he was unlucky enough to be struck by a piece. An enemy of the Hierarchy needed to be put down, and Titans preserve him, Saren was determined to be the first marine to step over its corpse, whatever it may be.

. . .

**_Xiaoming Commercial Sector, New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1135 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard_**

"Williams, are you there? _Williams_!" Even while engaged in heavy fighting, Shepard persistently tried to hail the general through the comms. It had been five minutes since he logged off the channel and went out into the battlefield all by himself.

"Give it a bloody rest, Shepard. I don't think the old bastard's coming back," Lewis answered the colonel through the comms, "He'll end up killing himself, I reckon."

"Dammit, then where the fuck is he now?!" The colonel impaled an alien soldier's throat with his shockblade, giving the handle a twist as he pulled the weapon back. He shoved the falling soldier to the ground before turning around to engage three hostiles converging on his rear flank. "We need that sectopod of his! If he ends up getting it destroyed with him in it, it'll end up jeopardizing this entire operation!"

Another voice entered the comms. "Kodiak, this is Field Agent Lorenzo of the Langley Street detachment! My unit spotted Hammerhead's sectopod approaching the enemy lines; he destroyed several armored companies, three fortified structures, a fighter jet and seven gunships on his way there. How copy, over?"

Shepard was in the process of beating a turian into a bloody pulp with the bullet-ridden, heavily damaged and unpowered remnants of his shield. By the time he was done, the alien's head and upper torso were reduced to mangled pieces of meat and his shield was rendered all but useless, though he didn't stop to think about this fact.

The colonel immediately went straight to sheathing his shockblade into a flanking soldier's gut, then quickly disposed of his mortally-wounded foe by striking its head with the back of his Ilyushinite-plated hand. Another nearby alien, strangely undaunted by the sudden deaths of its comrades, moved closer to the human and emptied its sub-machine gun into its foe.

Shepard shielded his head from the most damaging of the incoming fire with his tattered shield. Acting quickly before his armor succumbed to the close-range attack, Shepard approached his adversary by moving along a zig-zagging course. When he was nearly at melee length, the alien did something to its chestplate before putting its gun away and pulling out what appeared to be a serrated combat knife, but it was just as long as a short sword.

The colonel smirked - the turian made a fatal mistake. To even the odds a little, he sheathed his sword and threw away the severely-damaged remnants of his shield. His only weapons now were his own two gauntleted hands.

The alien shouted a guttural battle-cry and lunged as the human drew near, hoping to score an easy kill via a blade slicing through its adversary's throat. Shepard intercepted the blow mid-strike with his left gauntlet, effortlessly diverting the advancing blade's course with one swipe of plated hand. The colonel avoided a retaliatory left hook from the alien by moving off to his right, then swiftly countered by crushing the bones inside the turian's left lower leg with a powerful, exoframe-augmented kick.

The turian yelped as it went down on one knee. Shepard was relentless as he held on to his foe's shoulder for leverage, then proceeded to land one strike after another with his right gauntlet, capping off his vicious assault with a particularly cruel blow, made more gruesome with miniaturized rocket thrusters built into his exoframe's arm-part - essentially a scaled-down version of the infamous MEC Kinetic Strike Module attack.

As the alien withered and died in his grasp, Shepard observed his handiwork. In the middle of his assault, the alien lost both its mandibles - ripped from their sockets after taking too much damage. The general shape of the alien's head was unrecognizable, having been bent and hammered out of shape. One of its eyes appeared to have been driven back into the skull, and its nose was flattened and bleeding.

By that time, Shepard learned why this alien feared him so little. He noticed too late the primed grenades strapped to its chestplate.

"Kodiak, what the hell's going on out there! Are you _still_ receiving me?" Agent Lorenzo continued, her voice sounding more urgent.

Cursing under his breath, Shepard held on to the alien's chest riggings and threw it back with all his augmented might, just in time to see more turians approaching his position. He turned to retreat, but was violently pushed to the ground when the deceased turian's grenades blew up, with him still in its explosive radius.

The colonel coughed and wheezed as he crawled his way to cover, just as enemy small arms fire began to pepper his position. "I'm reading you... clearly, Lorenzo." He responded into his radio. "Are you still in visual range of Hammerhead? I need you to move in and assist him in any way you can!"

The colonel pulled out his assault rifle. Checking the charge, he was slightly worried at how he already used up nearly seventy percent of the gun's power.

"We're now in position, colonel!" Lorenzo chimed in, sounding exhausted herself after a long sprint. "Be advised, the Williams' sectopod is in a pretty bad shape; one of the legs has been partially blown off, and the laser cannon doesn't look to be in a condition to fire again! We're trying to-"

There was a loud, metallic chipping sound, like a bullet embedding itself into a metal surface.

"Holy shit, man down!" Lorenzo could be heard shouting. "Heads up, we've got a sni-!"

Shepard just re-entered cover after suppressing a group of approaching enemy soldiers. "Lorenzo? Agent Lorenzo! What the hell's going on up there?!" He tore a plasma grenade from his belt and chucked it out of cover, into the general direction of the enemy.

Nothing but static from the comms and a grenade's explosion answered the colonel, to his increasing chagrin. He looked up from cover to fire at the enemy again, but was surprised by the sight of the aliens lying dead on the ground, having apparently shot one another.

_FARSIGHT._

"You should slow down a little, Jon." Karlotte, accompanied by her squad of psionic soldiers, stepped into view and approached their fellow agent. "Our friends from CARD told how you went off into the thick of it without support."

Shepard looked around, noticing the trail of dead aliens he left as he mindlessly advanced forwards. "I _had_ support,"

He fished out three pairs of dog-tags from a compartment built into his exoframe and showed them to the other colonel. "This is what happens when I don't pay enough attention - I get reckless like Williams." He put the tags back into the compartment.

"Speaking of Williams," One of the FARSIGHT agents spoke up, a junior field agent straight from Earth named Massani. "I last saw the old codger still piloting that goddamn sectopod at the foot of Lingzhao Station. He's already taken a bloody beating, but if we hurry, we can pull him out of there before the goddamn exxies get to him."

Karlotte seemed a little surprised. Agent Massani was a Wraith-framed scout who frequently operated behind enemy lines and far out of reach of friendly units, but she was still taken aback at the amount of information he was capable of retrieving.

"Lingzhao? That's x-ray central; no one's gonna reach that sector without getting mashed to paste by turrets and artillery. The Devastator can't take too many direct hits with the thin plating it has," The FARSIGHT colonel said. "The general is in serious trouble."

Shepard knew that the best course of action was to let the general get shelled for being such an impulsive idiot, but he can't risk having the Devastator scrapped to bits, nor could he willingly let a high ranking officer of the Federation to die. More pragmatically, if the situation turned south, there would be no scapegoats for the government and the Council to easily place the blame on.

The colonel made his decision. "We're left with no choice. I don't like throwing men into enemy fire so recklessly - but if we lose Williams, there would be severe consequences for everyone."

He sighed as he logged into a different radio channel, addressing all human forces in combat and in reserve. "All units, I'm ordering an all out-attack on Lingzhao Station, I repeat, we must retake Lingzhao Station at all costs..."

"God preserve us." He whispered.

**. . .**

**_Lingzhao Med-Cap Rapid Transit, New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony_**

**_July 04th, 2157 - 1140 hours_**

**_General Williams_**

Shepard was right, Williams thought to himself as he continued to engage the enemy front all by his lonesome. Enemy mass-accelerated projectiles penetrated his sectopod's thin armor plating and slightly damaged his cybersuit, but the general took them in stride. If he hadn't been piloting a MEC at the same time as he was piloting the mobile gun platform, he'd have been already dead.

A four-man squad of XCOM agents arrived to fight with Williams earlier, but they were quickly killed off by alien sniper fire. Slowly and methodically, more and more of the aliens started encroaching his position, intent on overwhelming him with sheer brute force.

Vehicles and infantry sections were wiped from existence as they approached the general's crippled sectopod. They tried switching to different tactics, but Williams knew what to do every time they attempted to put themselves at an advantage. His defense lasted for several more minutes, until his guns overheated to the point of uselessness, and his pods finally ran out of missiles.

"Come on, you!" Williams pushed a lever forward, dragging his sectopod forward by its one remaining functional leg. He wanted to meet the enemy head on and get the proper end he so rightly deserved. "Move, you fucking spook sardine-can!"

Before Williams could move further, his radar spotted incoming alien fighters. He stopped and inclined his warmachine upwards, taking aim with the functional missile pods. Since he was already out of missiles, he had to use the sectopod's then-unused grapeshot-styled grenades for ammunition.

The general unleashed the thick swarm of explosives from the pods just as the fighters advanced extremely close for maximum accuracy. He watched as three of the fighters took direct hits from several grenades, obliterating them completely. One of them evaded the explosives, but nonetheless took one grenade to its right wingtip, causing it to careen off the side and collide onto an allied aircraft, engulfing both of them in a bright yellow fireball.

Despite all his best effort, the alien fighters nonetheless achieved their objective; a crippled bomber managed to advance close enough to drop its payload on the general's position, only a few meters to his left.

The general could only close his eyes and clench his teeth as an explosion ripped through the side of his sectopod, destroying almost all remaining functionality it still had and reducing the machine into a horribly-mangled husk. However, despite the amount of damage he sustained, the explosion still failed to kill Williams, thanks to his Juggernaut MEC.

Only the cockpit area of the Devastator remained in one piece. Williams struggled to see through the thick smoke and his cracked, blood-splattered visor as he made his final preparations. He endeavored not to die like Al-Aziz - he intended to go out fighting with everything he's got.

. . .

**Hossk-Va Sector Grid E-19, Unknown Alien Colony**

**July 04th, 2157 - 1155 hours**

**Lieutenant Arterius**

"Zero contacts, lieutenant!" A marine point-man called out. "This area's clear, moving up!"

With a tactical shotgun in hand and in the company of a large battalion of marines and armored vehicles, Lieutenant Saren advanced with caution through the smoke, navigating his way around the ruined scenery. He and his comrades were tasked to make their way towards the troublesome alien walker's last known location, to confirm its destruction.

"Hell of a fucking day!" One marine exclaimed to his companions, who immediately responded in approval.

"Boys back home aren't gonna believe the shit we've seen in this hellhole colony," Another said. "This race don't mess around, that's for sure."

"Quiet!" Saren silenced the men as he spotted the wrecked alien walker just up ahead the beaten path, laying on the entrance of a subway station. "Objective in sight! Take positions, on the double!"

The once-great alien machine of war was reduced to a shadow of its former self. It was now missing both legs and with the exception of the main gun, most of its weapons have had their barrels melted by continuous use. The missile pods were emitting pillars of white smoke, and the area around the wreck was plagued with the persistent scent of burning metals and leather.

While the sizable cockpit area's left flank appeared to be scorched and mangled, the cockpit itself was the only part of the machine that still remained relatively intact, suggesting that it was made with better materials and construction methods compared to the other parts of the vehicle.

This fact made Saren wary - whatever piloted the dreaded warmachine might be still inside, waiting for unsuspecting marines to pry it open.

The lieutenant made to warn his men, but he acted too late to prevent a squad of his unblooded soldiers from moving a little too close to the walker wreck, in a misguided attempt to search for the enemy pilot.

"Hey! Get away from the-" The rest of Saren's words never left his mouth.

The dead walker's misshapen main gun emitted one last discharge. The orange beam narrowly missed a pair of passing marines thanks to its misalignment, but the intense heat of the fusion lance projectile was nonetheless enough to set the unfortunate turians ablaze as it passed by them.

Before anyone could react, the walker's cockpit canopy burst open, conjuring up a cloud of strange white and blue particles as it did so. When the cloud cleared out and the smoke dispersed somewhat, the turians quickly have had their entire arsenal levelled on the cockpit, expecting the alien pilot to appear, brandishing a weapon of some kind with the intention of making a final stand.

Instead, Saren and his troops found nothing. The cockpit area was open and bared for all to see, but not a soul was to be found sitting there.

"Maybe it was on autopilot - some kind of VI?" A marine at the front guessed, taking a relaxed stance. "I think it was-"

Every man listening to the marine recoiled in shock and revulsion. Some even went so far as to empty the contents of their stomachs onto the pavement, or even the inside their own helmets.

For some inexplicable reason, the soldier quite literally burst apart in a morbidly disgusting manner. It was as if an invisible force smashed him over the head and propelled his scorched remains all over the pavement.

"Ah, fuck-!" Saren recoiled as his armor and faceplate were spattered with the marine's blood and viscera. "Titans, what the- _augh!_"

A creature straight out from a nasty fever dream emerged out of cloak, carrying a monstrously large, energy-wreathed maul in its powerful robotic hands. It stood at an intimidating height of thirteen feet, fully armored in streamlined, compressed alien plate and painted in urban camouflage colors. The humanoid tank menacingly brandished its weapon as it approached the surprised turian marines in a deliberately slow, ominous pace.

The lieutenant wiped his visor free of blue fluids and briefly beheld the sight of the alien pilot bearing down on them. His next moves were more decisive - consisting of pulling up his shotgun and emptying shell after shell on the advancing foe. His actions quickly shook the rest of the men out of their collective surprise, and they quickly joined him in his attack.

In response, the alien in the suit reeled back and levelled the gun welded on the back of its armored shoulder at the closest cluster of turian marines. It took a moment taking in turian small-arms fire before it fired a three-shot burst of plasma grenades at its foes, obliterating an entire infantry section instantly, as well as several more marines from the other sections.

While the turians struggled to regroup and take stock of the situation again, the alien utilized the confusion it sowed to advance closer to its enemies, hoisting the electrified bludgeon it had in its hands as it did so.

With a grunt and some difficulty, Saren pulled a downed fellow soldier up to her feet. The marine lieutenant kept his mind on his duty as he turned to keep up the fire on the sole foe, but he lost all his bravery when faced with the sight of the suited alien bearing over his position, about to paint the pavement with his remains with its gigantic maul. The lieutenant barely managed to avoid being crushed by quickly moving to the side, but he was too late to avoid the alien's mechanical hand.

Saren choked and gagged as the alien's metal claws enclosed on his neck and upper torso, undoubtedly breaking some of his ribs in the process. It kept its constricting grip on the lieutenant as it took aim with another of the multitude of secondary weapons mounted behind its broad shoulders - the one that was fitted with obvious tubes of different sizes leading up to a large metal canister at the small of the alien combat suit's back.

The lieutenant wished he could look away at the scene that came next, but the alien holding him hostage seemed all too eager to force his neck towards its gruesome work. As it lumbered nonchalantly forwards, the alien torched any turian marine it came into close contact with using a dreadful flame-spewing device it was equipped with. Those without helmets could be seen screaming in agony as their eyes and flesh melted away from their skulls, and soon, there would be nothing left of these marines but a scorched, smoking ruin on the cracked pavement.

The alien in the suit bellowed out a distorted, worryingly unhinged cackle as Saren's marines fled its immediate vicinity in a panic. The lieutenant, however, managed to gain enough room to pull his emergency sidearm from his hip, and he quickly devised a makeshift attempt to break free from his captor's grasp.

He took aim on one of the fatter tubes that transferred fuel to the flamethrower and fired twice, the pistol rounds easily tearing through the rubbery alien material. The suited alien was too distracted laughing maniacally while hosing down its remaining foes to notice Saren clasping at the fuel-gushing broken tube, who quickly ignited it with an incendiary round from his pistol. With a flame-belching tube in his hand, Saren wasted no time smothering his captor's head with the same flames it took so many turian lives with.

Saren expected the alien to panic immediately and drop him, allowing for a smooth escape. He instead watched the flames from his tube quickly died out, revealing that the alien's helmet was completely undamaged save for a now blackened paint-job. The lieutenant then received a fleeting kiss from Death itself when the alien retaliated by suddenly tightening its grip on its hostage, nearly crushing him then and there.

The marine lieutenant barely held on to dear life as his captor hurled him away to deal with what small measure of damage its head sustained. He met with the pavement with a dull crunch, his gaze staring to his side, in perfect view of the charred remains of his comrades and the desolated alien cityscape. The lieutenant made no effort to move - he deduced that he was probably paralyzed from the neck down by then.

He felt no physical or emotional pain, nor any kind of sorrow - only disappointment at leaving his task undone; he failed in his duties to uphold the Hierarchy's interests.

Nevertheless, his last thoughts were that of home. The pleasures and satisfactions of life brought on by unquestioning service and devotion to his race were nearly enough to make Saren consider holding on to his last sliver of strength, but alas, his time had come.

Hierarchy First Lieutenant Saren Arterius drew his last, labored breath with a smile.

. . .

**Hossk-Va Sector Grid E-04, Unknown Alien Colony**

**July 04th, 2157 - 1205 hours**

**Brigadier General Molvarth Zeliszek **

"Come back, you spineless, barefaced mongrels!" General Zeliszek shouted at some of his fleeing soldiers over the gunfire. He personally oversaw the advance force at the front, and to his dismay, he discovered that the battlefield conditions there were as every bit as hellish as the initial reports entailed.

"I'll have your hides for this! You hear me?!" Zeliszek's tried to put an effort in appearing defiant to the approaching alien tide for the benefit of his remaining demoralized men, but inwardly, he considered retreat to be a perfectly reasonable response to the rapidly deteriorating situation. "Stay by me, and I'll keep you alive! If we stand together, we can-"

An unexpected strafing run from a flight of alien 'cyberdisc' aircraft flying overhead decimated the general's frontline force, as well as most of the deserters standing out in the open. He cursed as power-armored aliens emerged out of deep cover, intent on pushing the last of the invaders out of their city.

"Sir, bad news!" The general's adjutant and his escorts arrived from the back, and not surprisingly, they appeared battered and bloodied. "Enemy commandos destroyed the last of our AA guns! We're defenceless against further attacks from the air!"

"Fucking great!" Zeliszek scowled. "What about the situation up in space? It's been a while since the vanguard fleet gave us some orbital support!"

The adjutant slowly averted his gaze from his superior. "Sir... we can't communicate with the fleet... at all. After we lost our long-range comm-relays, the only way we could patch through to Admiral Nandrakan's fleet was through Generals Severus and Desolas' surplus relays, which were built into their command vehicles. Last we heard of both of them, Severus' tank blew up in the first stages of the invasion with him in it, and Desolas hasn't responded to any of our hails yet."

It was the last straw for General Zeliszek. "Captain, without orbital support, we might as well call this invasion a damn failure! Re-organize the remaining men and vehicles and have them to withdraw back to Nuriel Sector, soldier! For all of our sakes, let's hope the shuttle pilots haven't left us to die, yet!"

. . .

_**In orbit of Unknown Alien Colony**_

**July 04th, 2157 - 1205 hours**

**Admiral Lina**

"Spirits, this is hopeless!"

"If you don't have anything _useful _to say, Sorex..." Lina was slowly being driven mad by Admiral Sorex's unhelpful attitude. "I'd strongly advise you to _shut up_ and get. The hell. Off. My comms! Did you fucking _buy_ your commission?"

"Madam admiral..." A comm officer meekly began, nervously wringing her talons as she started.

The admiral didn't even notice her subordinate. "If you don't do your duty at this very instant, Sorex, I swear, I'll have you tried and executed before the courts! I'll flay your filthy carapace and have it mounted on my damned mantelpiece! You won't even live to regret your actions today!"

"Admiral, please..." The officer trudged a little closer to her superior. "You really, _really _need to take a look at this."

Finally, Lina found the time to focus her attention on the junior-looking officer, who was clutching a datapad on her hands. She couldn't help but notice the woman's barefaced head.

"This had _better_ be important, lieutenant! I'm a little _fucking_ busy!" Lina, still brimming with anger, declared.

"I... can see that, ma'am..." The comm lieutenant mustered up her courage and held her datapad for the admiral to see. "This is the situation planetside..."

Lina's heart jumped when she saw what the pad displayed. She stepped down from her command position and walked closer to her subordinate.

What the admiral saw was raw footage from a Hierarchy squad sergeant's helmet cams. From the looks of it, the sergeant was hunkered down behind rubble as he emptied his gun unto indistinct, rapidly advancing alien infantry. Further study of the footage revealed that the aliens weren't even in cover, and were actively charging into the turian lines.

"Let's go, let's go! Run! Run, dammit! Get to the fucking shuttles!" He shouted while gesturing for his comrades to retreat behind him. He unloaded a volley into the enemy ranks before shifting targets. "Keep moving, you bastards! They can't shoot for shi-!"

Suddenly, an unseen entity lunged at the camera, eliciting a surprised gasp from Lina. The sergeant, along with the view, were knocked around for a while, before the camera settled to look up at a towering, hulking mass of an alien soldier, roaring menacingly at the camera. Encased in a bulky suit of darkened powered armor and armed with nothing but a pair of pneumatic fists outfitted with rings of electrified spikes, the creature was the stuff of drug-induced nightmares.

The admiral put her hands over her mouth and looked away as the alien lunged at the camera again. The sergeant's screams were cut quite short as disturbing sounds of bones being snapped and flesh being torn were heard. Nothing could be seen from beyond the camera at that point, as it was splattered in blood.

"I- I'm sorry you had to see that, ma'am. That was fifteen minutes ago, and as you saw, our ground forces have apparently been sent running." The junior officer pressed a button to the side of the datapad, and in an instant, the view was changed, displaying a grainy image of a poorly-lit ship's cargo deck. "But it gets worse. This footage was taken just two minutes ago, aboard Admiral Sorex's dreadnou-"

Suddenly, an loud explosion concentrated on one of the bulkheads in the cargo hold momentarily disabled the camera. Moments later, turian marines came pouring into the area, brandishing assault rifles and anti-vehicle weaponry.

"LOOK ALIVE, SQUAD!" The lead marine screamed as he charged in with his men, expecting to see hostiles inside the cargo hold. When it was determined that the area was clear despite the massive breach in one of the bulkheads, he seemed to relax.

"No sign of them, but keep on guard!" He ordered, gesturing at defensible positions while holding his rifle upwards with one hand. "CIC says they'll be here any minute now, so I suggest we-"

The darkened and obscured yet unmistakable alien figures of enemy boarders suddenly emerged out of cloak, holding a dizzying assortment of plasma and laser based weaponry and equipped with much bulkier exoframes. How they entered the turian vessel was beyond the admiral.

Lina and some of the bridge crew watched in abject horror as the aliens mercilessly slaughtered the dreadnought's security detail while they were still tripping over themselves as they scrambled for cover. Before the admiral could study these aliens, one of them nonchalantly levelled its gun up to the camera, before discharging an emerald bolt.

"Damn." Was all Lina could say about what she saw. She felt like vomiting. "...so that's it, then? We've lost."

The junior officer winced a little as she retracted her device. She could only look down and say nothing. In response, Lina nodded solemnly. Truly, there was nothing that needed to be said.

The admiral turned back to her post and glumly addressed the CIC crew. "Men, we wait until our forces from the ground return to us. After that, we'll head for Palaven to deliver our report immediately. This... this is a battle that, I'm saddened to say, we have no chance of winning. I will not waste any more turian lives trying to secure an objective we simply cannot take."

"But... but admiral!" Lina's XO spoke up, sounding very concerned for his commanding officer. "If we pull back, Palaven High Command will see you disgraced for this! I can only see that this will only end in your-"

The admiral cut him off, almost half-heartedly. "I'm willing to accept whatever punishment the Hierarchy deems necessary." She scowled, tiredly leaning on a railing. "In order to make an example of what happens to failures such as myself."

. . .

_**New Larkintown Outskirts**_

_**July 04th, 2157 - 1220 hours**_

_**Colonel Shepard - celebrating victory**_

Even with ear protection, the collective cheering coming from the victorious defenders of Shanxi was deafening.

Colonial infantry, volunteer militia and XCOM operatives alike shouted in joy and raised their guns to the air as the last of the turian shuttles took to the skies, the defeated remnants of the invading army within them. Above them, the spaceborne engagement raged on completely in favor of the reinforcing human fleet under Federal Navy Admiral Norman Draynor's command, and debris from the fight could be seen entering the planet's atmosphere.

Once again, humanity repelled an extraterrestrial incursion on their soil, sending the surviving aliens running back in shame, their tails between their legs.

Though the day was won and Shanxi's defense was successful, Shepard knew that the overall fight was very unlikely to be over. The battle was far too easy; the turians will be likely to return one day, bringing more men and a better arsenal. Humanity- no, _any _sentient race worth its salt would do the same.

"We won, Jon!" Karlotte bumped into her co-colonel, embracing him and interrupting his musings. "Can you believe it? We actually sent them running by virtue of being technologically better than them this time!"

Shepard placed an armored arm around his partner, pulling her closer. "Yeah..." He said, breathlessly. He looked down to her. "Though I have this weird nagging feeling that we'd be a lot busier in the coming days. You feel it too?"

"Of course I do!" Karlotte blurted out on impulse. "Jon, I'm going to be the _mother _of your-"

"WHOOO!" Lewis surprised the two of them by putting his arms around them from behind. "We're all heroes, guys! And most importantly, we'll all be filthy, stinkin', fuckin' rich! Ohhh, I can almost_ taste _the amount of royalties I'll be getting from vids and documentaries out of this! Haha!"

Shepard was going to say something that will instantly deflate the field agent, but decided against it. He should enjoy himself while he still could.

"Uhh, Henry? You _do _realize that everything about this op will just be covered up and stories of our involvement expunged from records?" Of course, Karlotte did it for Shepard anyway. She couldn't resist. "By tomorrow, psi-ops teams will sweep the area to mindwipe everyone's memories. Everything we just did to protect the colony _never _happened. Everyone will believe that we were _never _here to begin with."

The way Lewis' face went from ecstatic to crestfallen was enough to make both colonels grin. "I... know about that. I'm an XCOM field agent, for chrissakes." He sniffled a bit.

Shepard just shrugged. "If it's any consolation, I think it's time you earn your stripes, Lewis. After all the shit you pulled through today, it's only natural that a promoti-"

"Field Agent First Class...?" Lewis whispered, almost reverently.

The colonel nodded, smiling. "Don't let this get to your head." Was all he said, before Lewis regained his mirth and started cheering again.

"Have I ever told you you're my favorite stuck-up, workaholic wowser, Jonathan?" Lewis laughed, clapping the colonel's armored shoulder with his gauntleted hand. "Bloody hell, I feel ten years younger! I've got-"

"Hey, Agent Henry Lewis!" Operative Petrucci called out to him. She was standing amidst the handful of her fellow spies still alive. "We're going for beers and blackjack back in town! You in?"

While Lewis appeared to consider the offer, Shepard and Karlotte were suddenly greeted by General Williams, now on his feet and out of his MEC.

"Colonel," Williams flicked his cigar to another corner of his mouth. "I suppose you have some words to say to me, after what I've done to your sectopod."

Shepard frowned. "Yes... I think a few words are in order." He agreed, nodding. "Honestly, we've won the battle, Williams. I couldn't care less if you managed to get the Devastator wrecked - it'll never catch on anyway."

The general inclined a brow. "That's it?"

"Not by a longshot." The colonel shook his head. "While I'd let your frivolous use of XCOM resources slip, I can't neglect mentioning your... conduct, during the battle." He said, letting his pent-up irritation and mild anger show in his tone. "What you did - charging blindly on into the front like that - was the most aggravating display of incompetence I've seen of Federation generals in all my years of service... and that's an achievement in itself, believe me."

His expression then softened, and his tone reverted to normal. "But... it did turn out for the best, in the end. You don't-"

"It doesn't excuse what I did. Things could've got a lot fucking worse." Williams said. "That's why as of now, I'm resigning from Federal command."

As Shepard and Karlotte looked on in surprise, Williams continued, "My actions today proved that I'm no longer suited to my position. I've gone too old and too emotional to effectively take command of my forces. I leave my post to whoever the higher-ups deem to replace me with. That's all I wanted to say."

"Wait," Karlotte cut in. "Maybe there's a way the Federation can make use of your skills just yet."

Shepard looked to his partner. "Something on your mind?"

"D'you remember um... what was that again, uhm..." Karlotte paused to think. "Er, XCOM Codex article 47-209. They taught me that in officer school."

"Ah," The other colonel nodded in comprehension. "The Blue Draft. It's been a while since one of us made use of that."

Karlotte quizzically tilted her head. "Yeah, it's been, what, sixty years?"

General Williams tilted his head slightly. "You spooks do a good job pretending I'm an inanimate object."

"Forgive us." Karlotte turned to the general, leaning forward as she did so.

"The thing is," She spoke in a low, whispered tone. "We really can't afford to let our existence be known. Tomorrow, FARSIGHT squads will make sure of that by brainwashing everyone here - erasing any and all memories that include even a single glimpse of an XCOM agent. I dunno _why _we really have to, but that's rules for you."

Williams can't bring himself to act surprised. "Psh, I'd expect nothing less."

"However, we think we'll have much to gain by making a special exception, just for you." Karlotte looked to Shepard, trying her best to look as stern as possible. "Isn't that right, Jon?"

"Right," The colonel agreed. "If you're interested, we could take you into the ranks of XCOM as a MEC instructor. Though you proved very reckless today, we can't deny that you still possessed great skill with a cybersuit. What do you think, Mister Williams?"

The former general folded his arms and shook his head. "You don't have to rub it in, you know." He paused to think for a while, but it didn't take long. "Am I allowed to go into combat again? Will I get to take the fight to the aliens in one of your MECs at some point?"

Shepard saw no cause to argue. "Of course. In all likeliness, the director would probably have to make use of every able-bodied man at his disposal, if the turians ever choose to return. Just... don't go berserk again like you did today."

Williams extended a gloved hand for the colonel to take. "Then it's a deal, Colonel Shepard."

Shepard took the man's hand and shook it. "Very good, Proctor Williams. We're glad to have you."

. . .

_**Command Bridge, FNWS Annihilation**_

_**July 04th, 2157 - 1250 hours**_

**_Director Faust_**

"I have immobilized and captured an enemy cruiser, director." A synthesized female voice with a marked Québécois accent was heard throughout Director Faust's personal comms. "I await further directives; what should be the correct course of action?"

Faust didn't respond immediately. He walked towards a nearby window and peered beyond it. Sure enough, he found what he was looking for: the _XSF Old One_, an experimental stealth cruiser-sized, special-operations vessel, made in the shape of an ADVENT Seeker drone and equipped with enough directed energy weaponry to decimate entire planets.

"Director Faust?" The voice continued, more urgent this time. "The vessel's occupants are getting restless and desperate. They are starting to jettison all escape pods in hopes of escaping my grasp. Please respond."

Most importantly, the _Old One _came equipped with the very first fully-sentient artificial intelligence developed by human hands, making it capable of routinely performing complex operations and maneuvers mere VI-equipped automated vessels have no hope of achieving.

The director entered the comms. "Copy that, Worldsmith. Have you disabled their guns, yet?"

"One moment, sir." Faust observed with keen interest as the _Old One _moved a couple of her underside tentacles to point at her hostage vessel's main gun. The plasma cannons mounted on the mechanized appendage took a second to charge up before they collectively unleashed a low-powered plasma volley, devastating the alien vessel and utterly destroying its main method of defense. "It is done. Onboard life signs indicate 47% casualties so far."

While Faust would've liked a disabled vessel with minimal damage to the ship interiors and crew casualties, he wasn't above taking damaged goods. "Good. Release it and move to assist the liberation force planetside. I want all alien stragglers eliminated without issue, am I understood?"

"My pleasure." The sentient starship chimed. Faust watched as the _Old One _wrenched her Ilyushinite limbs free from the severely damaged alien ship before disappearing from the naked eye's sight with a discharge of blue and white particles.

Faust heard footsteps from behind. With a smirk, he turned around and came upon a very impressed-looking Admiral Draynor. "Unbelievable, isn't it? That ship just _talked _to me on its own accord."

"Our ships talk to us all the time," Draynor countered lightheartedly. "I'm more impressed as to how you managed to design, let alone produce, such a _unique _ship like that damned thing. Seriously, just _what_ did your engineers take, and where could I get some?"

Faust laughed. "It's a trade secret, Norman."

* * *

**XCOM DATABASE**

* * *

**\- OPERATOR REPORT 007128/380/08932**

_This report is a compiled by a collaborated effort between Junior Operator Lenka Stanislavovna Demidova [CANADA] and Field Agent Third Class Gerhardt von Rosshart [NEW PRUSSIA], submitted February 21st, 2141. The page is 14/37, and the section is labeled: _**Comparisons between standard-issue Federal infantryman equipment vs. XCOM standard-issue field agent/combat infantry gear.**

14.) PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

As Field Agent Gerhardt helpfully demonstrated in the holo-vid, the average Federation soldier comes equipped with a Mark VII K-21h Carapace Exoplate, which offers good protection form ballistic weapons fire, as well as acceptable protection from laser-based weaponry. Painted in Dark Olive Green and Taupe Grey and developed through a collaborative effort between defense contractors Rainer-Valdeko from Estonia and Qılınc Industries and Solutions from Azerbaijan-Armenia, this suit of Ilyushinite armor claims descent from the original XCOM-made 'Carapace Armor' design.

Equipped with features such as an internal medical delivery system for better combat performance, a holographic HUD that can automatically detect and track entities both friend and foe, an automated gun-cooling system allowing for continued laser firearm use, and a 'stasis' system to allow marines thrown out into space to survive the conditions they faced at the cost of complete immobility, the K-21h received whole-hearted praise from the soldiers equipped with them, crediting the suit for saving their lives when they otherwise would've perished in battle or by accidents.

As part of the Treaty of Bydgoszcz, non-Council armories cannot be allowed to equip Federal infantry with plasma-resistant gear and armor in order to give Council-affiliated field personnel a definite edge in a firefight against them.

In contrast to this, regular XCOM field personnel receive the Aufseher Powered Infantry Exoframe, designed by Swiss engineers on behalf of the Council. This suit of powered armor is very expensive and could take a very long time to produce from scratch due to galaxy-wide, Council-imposed quality control procedures. However, the Aufseher compensates for this by offering excellent protection from ballistics, beam laser, pulse laser, radiation, explosive, plasma and heat-based weaponry. In addition to this, the exoframe dramatically augments an agent's strength and reflexes, provides easy implementation of external combat drugs, and allows for simple application of a wide range of modular enhancements such as reactive plates, motion-assistors and experimental tesla coils.

Of course, over time, each Aufesher exoframe issued out to XCOM personnel could be subjected to extensive customization by the agents who wore them to battle in order to better suit their combat specializations. XCOM protocols technically forbid alteration of Council property, but the rule is almost never enforced. It is an unofficial rule among XCOM field personnel that so long as the armor still has the standard color pattern of Viridian and Dark Spring Green, agents can expect no trouble out of 'adjusting' their suits.

As befits our organization's 'quality over quantity' policy, our soldiers can claim superiority against their Federal counterparts in a straight-up fight, as demonstrated during the infamous Ganymede Incident of 2154, where a renegade Federal Navy company with significant drone support faced off against two platoons of XCOM field agents led by FARSIGHT operative Zaeed Massani. Our agents succeeded in neutralizing the renegades with only seven fatalities and eleven wounded.

**\- THE XSF _"OLD ONE"_**

A few years after the end to the Second Contact War, a team of (vaguely) Council-affiliated civilian scientists and engineers from Japan (which effectively ceased to exist in the later months of 2015, due in part to the Flight of the Writhing Night - the largest and most effective Seeker rush in the history of the war) arrived in XCOM HQ and contributed their multitude of strange and completely unorthodox mechanized unit designs for Drs. Shen and Vahlen to decide keeping.

Needless to say, most of the designs were discarded for reasons concerning the lack of resources XCOM has to offer, especially when most were diverted to rebuilding the neighboring countries. Among these scrapped designs was the blueprint for a 'Cruiser, Fast-Attack Stealth - Yamashiro-class', depicting a hulking, dreadnought-sized abomination of a stealth vessel - armed with a fusion lance for a 'beak' and countless plasma cannons mounted on its appendages, in addition to being made in the visage of Japan's vanquisher: the Seeker drone.

Many decades later, in the summer of 2107, during a routine clean-up of Schultz Moonbase, XCOM's current chief engineer, Dr. Ryang Chong Hui from the State of Joseon, discovered the Yamashiro-class stealth cruiser designs stashed away in one of Dr. Shen's old folder drawers. Enticed by the idea of a significantly up-scaled Seeker drone that could appear behind enemy lines and either crush hostile cruiser-sized vessels within its Ilyushinite tentacles or shoot them dead within seconds using the multitude of directed-energy weapons mounted into its hull, Dr. Hui put forward plans to assemble the great machine.

Alas, the current XCOM commander (who was known for his extensive rivalry with Dr. Hui prior to taking command of the organization) almost instantly shot her idea down. Undeterred by the director's expression of disapproval, XCOM's chief engineer devoted resources and men to jumpstart the project in secret, codenamed 'Legacy'.

Due to the clandestine nature of the project, it had to be deliberately undermanned and underfunded to draw away attention, and as a result, it took almost twenty years just to complete 90% of the project. Most unfortunately, at that time, Dr. Hui was suddenly assassinated by her own wife - an EXALT deep-cover agent, leaving Project Legacy without its leader. However, luck seemed to favor the Legacy project personnel, when Hui's immediate successor, Dr. Carolyn Weber from the Republic of Québec, personally took the project under her wing, now with the current director's (if rather reluctant) approval.

Dr. Weber proved very unorthodox in her dealing with Project Legacy. She oversaw the daily procedures almost daily and contributed directly to the project, assembling parts and attaching them into the vessel's hull and interiors by her own hands. At some point during her tenure as chief engineer, she even ordered several new additions to the already significant amount of features the stealth ship possessed, which included a flash-terraforming function and even a self-aware artificial intelligence to serve as the vessel's mind. It goes without saying that her decisions met significant opposition from other XCOM and even Council personnel, but in the end, Project Legacy was finally completed after a period of twenty-two years.

The new stealth vessel, given the designation of 'Worldsmith' (supposedly for its habit of terraforming uninhabitable worlds in its spare time) and christened as the XSF _Old One,_ proved to be an extremely useful addition to XCOM's covert assets over the years. While it was rather suspicious of Dr. Weber to suddenly resign from her position and immediately disappear without a trace a few days after the completion of Project Legacy, people were quick to move on after her replacement, a fresh-faced Dr. Maksim Shevchenko, proved even more adept at his position as chief engineer than almost all of his predecessors.

**-**** OPERATOR-MADE LEAFLET, "AVOID TRAGEDY; PROVIDE XCOM WITH BRAVE SOLDIERS FOR THE FUTURE!"**

_This physical leaflet is dated 19th of August, 2021, designed by Senior Proctor Newyddilyn Moore and distributed among all XCOM personnel. There is a large red mark on the leaflet's middle section, displaying the words "FUCK THIS SHIT" very prominently._

Dear Sir or Madam,

On the 12th of June, 2021, the Council of Nations decided that XCOM would eventually stop recruiting from outside sources in an effort to increase security and reduce the very grave risk of EXALT infiltration. By the 1st of January, 2025, our numbers would eventually plummet until there will be none of us left to carry the XCOM flag. Essentially, without taking the necessary measures to prevent our extinction, XCOM is doomed.

We wouldn't want that to happen, would we? Who will defend humanity from the threat of alien invasion once again? Twice now we've done our duty to secure humanity's continued existence, only for us to unceremoniously die out like starved cockroaches - rendered nothing more but a gold-trimmed footnote in the annals of history.

Will our most valiant leader, the venerable Director Theerfelder [sic], let us suffer this horrid fate? Why, of course not. Not all of us will see his way, but in time, his decision will be seen as the wisest course of action, I assure you.

Effective today and until our numbers are at an acceptable level, active opposite-sex couples within the ranks of XCOM are required to procreate and conceive at least one (1) child for induction into operator or field agent training. Those who already have children of their own may choose to submit their chosen offspring to the barracks for gradual induction. Failure to do the above without providing an acceptable reason to our medical personnel will incur mild to severe penalties, depending on the circumstances.

Additionally... and most regrettably, due to the detestable state of our current numbers, same-sex relationships among XCOM agents are now actively discouraged as per Director Thierfelder's word. Heavy penalties will be incurred to any XCOM personnel proven to be engaging in homosexual acts until-

_The leaflet is burned from further below, rendering any further paragraphs ineligible. _

* * *

Hello.

I fucked up with the submission date again, didn't I? Well, nobody should be surprised at this point. My life just isn't what it used to be anymore - I couldn't even find the time to open my PM box. That's how bad it is.

As of 17/02/16, I handed over management of the story to one of my friends so that I'll be able to focus on my work more. Don't worry, my involvement will still be around 80%, given that I'll still be the one directing the course of the story. My friend will be the one in charge of most of the typing and some of the proofreading. I hope this doesn't change much except for the atrocious update time. I'm very sorry.

This is the last of the 30k word chapters (for real, this time). I'm off to perhaps 10-15k words, so that I'll manage to keep a regular schedule.

Goodbye.


	3. Mankind Marches,

**_The Council Chambers – The Citadel_**

**_July 05__th__, 2157 – 1300 hours_**

**_Councilor Selissa Tevos – Councilor for the asari race_**

"You seem quite vexed."

Councilor Sparatus stopped pacing to glare at his asari counterpart. "I'm not," He immediately said as a response. "There's just… there's just been some complications with the Hierarchy's recent orders. It's really nothing to worry about." He went back to pacing.

Tevos narrowed her eyes as she observed Sparatus' repetitive back-and-forth marching. From the many years the asari councilor had spent with the turian councilor, she knew that whenever he paced, there's something grievously wrong with something. "Expecting another child, Davian?" She deadpanned.

Sparatus forced a laugh out of his mouth. The ill-fitting, unnatural sound of it sent shivers down Tevos' spine. "No, I'm afraid. This is something much more important than—" Suddenly, his omni-tool started beeping. Instantly, the turian councilor ran off to a more remote spot in the Council Chambers, presumably to receive a call that he wouldn't want Tevos or Keldron to hear about.

"He's doing it again," Tevos said to her salarian counterpart. "He's trying to hide something from us."

"Quite so." Councilor Keldron responded punctually. "Usually, I'd say this most likely concerns turian military matters, given how they always act, but the councilor seems to act more paranoid and reclusive. I imagine it's a personal matter, so I think we should stay out of it."

However, Tevos wanted to know what's wrong, so she stepped down from her seat, towards her turian colleague, who remained oblivious to her presence.

"—yes, of course! She should never have been placed in charge of the vanguard fleet! Curse the barefaced whore that spawned her! This is an outrage!" Tevos, with her arms crossed, observed Sparatus heatedly converse with someone on his omni-tool's communicator. "I don't even think she deserves a trial. Can you imagine the weight of this crime she has committed? An image that stood for a thousand years – shattered! What she deserves is a long, drawn-out execution! No, her _whole family _deserves some form of punishment for bringing up a colossal failure of an admiral!"

It wasn't long before the asari councilor pieced together everything. The only image that stood for a millennium that could be possibly shattered is the image that the turians had never lost an engagement since the Krogan Rebellions. That means that either the turian navy had lost a battle with a particularly powerful band of Terminus pirates, or they've made contact with an as-of-yet unknown alien race and subsequently got defeated. With quick, graceful strides, Tevos crossed the distance between her and Sparatus, tapping his shoulder to get his attention afterwards.

Sparatus body immediately went rigid when he felt the fingers that knocked the back of his shoulder. He warily turned around and gasped when he saw Tevos' form, eyes narrowed, head lowered and arms crossed. "…Selissa? Something I could help you with?" He meekly asked.

"Don't try that on me, Davian." Tevos responded. "I heard everything, and looks like your race's fleet finally found a match. Tell me, _who _exactly did you have the misfortune of picking a fight with?"

The turian councilor flew into a rage. "No one!" He barked, but to her credit, Tevos remained as stern as before. "This is none of your race's damned concern, Tevos. Stay out of this."

Tevos rolled her eyes. "It's my job to see to galactic affairs. An unknown military force that successfully defeated the supposedly undefeatable turian fleet is surely a matter that warrants my concern, councilor." She countered acidly.

The turian councilor's mandibles flared in exasperated rage. "Aren't there more important matters that should worry you more than something that my people – and my people alone – should resolve ourselves? Can't you see that this is too small of a problem to bother you if I'm keeping it to myself? For the last time, I'm not telling you anything until this problem resolves itself!"

"You know, this is big news, Sparatus. A matter so significant as this should be in the headlines soon…" Tevos stated. "It's for the good of everyone if you'd tell me everything about this "small problem" of yours, so I can begin preparations for the appropriate course of action." Tevos' voice turned steely, a sign that she was growing impatient; and when Councilor Tevos gets impatient, something unpleasant will insue.

Sparatus, for all his years serving with the asari councilor, knew all too much about this. Backed to a corner with no place to seek solace, he sighed in defeat. However, he isn't keen on letting out information without the primarchs' authorization. He'd rather deal with the consequences of incurring Tevos' wrath than see his good name tarnished amongst his people. "I'm sorry, Tevos. You'll get nothing from me today."

With heavy feet, and an even heavier heart, Sparatus began to trudge back to his seat, leaving Tevos alone.

…

**_The Primarch's Office – Palaven _**

**_July 05__th__, 2157 – 1500 hours_**

**_Primarch Valerius Corvinius – primarch in charge of the Apien Crest Cluster_**

Trebia's fading sunlight poured from the windows, into the seated form of Primarch Valerius. On this day, the primarch was keenly waiting for a certain admiral in charge of the fleet sent to Relay 314. On the outside, Valerius is wearing his most calm, unruffled face, but on the inside, he's seething with serene wrath.

_How could she?_ The primarch pondered as his talons rapped his desk in a pattern mirroring a melody he liked. It's one of the ways he could relieve stress. _For the first time in more than millennium did a turian fleet ever got itself bested, and by a primitive fleet, no less! _His teeth began grinding each other._ There must be some sort of grave incompetence in Nandrakan's part. It _has_ to be._ Valerius groaned as he looked at his chrono. _She's late. All the more reason to give her the death penalty._

The primarch continued tapping on his desk for several minutes, until the old-fashioned, weathered steel door to his office swung open.

"Primarch Corvinius," In came Admiral Aureliana, who was still wearing her bloodstained Hierarchy Navy uniform. From the looks of her, she looked like she hadn't slept at all. "I've been hassled by thrice-damned news crews on the way here. I apologize for being behind schedule."

"Admiral Nandrakan." Valerius greeted sternly. "You may seat yourself." He didn't bother gesturing to a seat. To her credit, the admiral remained standing, as a silent gesture of defiance.

"I don't deserve comfort, primarch. You and I both know that." She said, seemingly in a resigned monotone. "Could we just get this over with, and skip to the part where you have me publicly humiliated before having me shot like a tedrani in front of everyone? I've already made my peace with the Spirits."

The primarch rigidly shook his head. "It'll come to that. First, I want you to tell me what happened out there. How so a powerful, ultramodern fleet like yours came to be defeated by mere primitives, for one." His tone is like that of a parent reprimanding a child that did wrong. "They've most likely barely ever set foot out of their home planet, eve—"

Suddenly, Lina closed the distance gap between her and the primarch, put both of her hands on his desk and locked him in a withering stare. Valerius flinched as he leaned back, reclining on his seat.

"Listen here, you barefaced, scum-sucking fuckhead," The admiral's tone was barely above a whisper, but it contained enough contempt to thicken the atmosphere. "Is your head so far up your ass that you can't see what just damn well happened? They. Were. Not. PRIMITIVES!" Lina's earlier low tone progressed into full-fledged hate-filled screaming. By now, Valerius considered calling security, fearing for his own safety.

However, Admiral Lina isn't done yet. "They've got _directed energy weapons_, primarch. Energy fucking weapons! They went right through my soldiers' kinetic barriers, all but outright killing them in a single Spirits-damned shot! And it's not just their infantry, too. When their response fleet arrived, they all but obliterated my fleet and the reinforcements you sent! I'm not even gonna explain how they used drones that could kill whole platoons of our soldiers as their throwaway, disposable units, and how seventeen of their ships destroyed three times their number in my own ships and heavily damaged most of what remained!" Lina looked to be on the verge of doing something drastic, but she deflated in short order.

"What I'm saying is," She involuntarily sighed, cutting herself off. "What I'm saying is that we just started a war that could potentially be much worse than the Krogan Rebellions. _Much worse_."

Valerius' hand was hovering close to the alarm button hidden under his desk, but he kept himself from pressing it as soon as he heard Lina say the word "directed energy weapons", and how the Hierarchy had somehow gotten itself into a bigger mess than the Rebellions themselves. Slowly, the primarch retracted his hand, letting it fall.

"I'm afraid you still left me in the dark, admiral. Could you please explain everything that happened?" He coolly asked, his earlier nervousness already dissipating.

This time, Lina collapsed on the seat in front of Valerius' desk. She took a moment to collect herself before speaking, "My fleet was decimated by an enemy force that's far superior than ours. Not in numbers, but in everything else concerning warfare."

The primarch's eye twitched, no doubt because of Lina's words. The admiral noticed, so she pressed on. "That's right, primarch. We're don't possess the strongest military force anymore, as of now. These aliens have us technologically beat in all aspects of combat. Whatever damage our military could do, they'll do much better and in much less time. Their ground-based troops are all equipped with armored exoframes and plasma-spewing firearms, but there's also been reports that some of the aliens preferred to use _swords_ and gauntlet-mounted claws of all things."

"Swords and claws, admiral?" Valerius incredulously asked. "Mere blades can't penetrate our troops' armor, last I recall. They often broke in half upon contact. And last I've heard, only the krogan actually took swords into battle, and that's from a thousand years ago."

Lina raggedly laughed, sending shivers down the primarch's spine. "Tell that to the men who witnessed their colleagues get slashed apart in one glancing strike. Whatever that thing's made of, it just eats through a standard infantryman's armor." The admiral laughed again, like she wasn't explaining a deadly serious matter, but she was telling a joke. "That's not even the worst part. Some of the aliens were literal walking Council law violations; they've got enough cybernetics to make them look synthetic, and through some field autopsies that my men performed, they noted that some of the aliens' genetic structures have been radically restructured, essentially turning them into super-soldiers through genetic augmentation.

Lina finally stopped laughing. Her voice taking a more solemn tone. "Also, during the heat of battle, for some inexplicable reason, some of the troops suddenly turned on each other, like these aliens could somehow manipulate our soldiers' minds. In fact, some of the surviving soldiers reported hearing whispers as they fought."

Valerius looked more and more agitated as Lina talked. _She must have gone insane… this sounds too ridiculous to believe._

"What a wonderfully creative mind you've got on you, admiral." He sarcastically drawled. "Did you come up with that on your way up here?"

Lina scowled at the primarch. "Here you are, doing what you barefaced politicians are oh, so known for. I don't care how much you mock me, or how do you plan on getting rid of me in the next few hours, but I _beseech_ you, primarch. if you want to preserve the turian way of life, then hear what I've got to say!"

Valerius put his hands up in a calming, albeit mocking gesture. "Alright, alright. Let's see what sort of mindless nonsense have you got to say. After all, these are your final hours. I won't deny you your last wish, for I'm not that cruel."

The admiral clenched her fists tightly. She was thinking about letting them execute her now, to save herself from being in close proximity with this barefaced politician for longer, but she decided not to let her feelings to hold her actions.

"There's a storm coming, primarch. One that could potentially plunge the galaxy as we know it into bloodier, grislier and _quicker _version of the Krogan Rebellions. If you let my words slip through your ears like you officials always do, then I'm afraid you're dooming the turian race into another war, one that we can't possibly win. Now, if you care about anything other than yourself, then listen well. My time is short…"

…

**_New Larkintown – Uptown Commons – XCOM Shanxi Branch_**

**_1500 hours_**

**_Director Tyrone Faust_**

Faust grumbled as he entered the security combination to the doors to the situation room. He had tried entering the usual code, but the console wouldn't accept it. He even had one of his subordinates back at Schultz Base to give him the Shanxi Branch's specific combination, and _still _it wouldn't work.

"This facility hasn't had any activity in fifteen years, director." Shepard stated, who was right behind Faust. "Maybe the console just wouldn't work because it _doesn't_ work anymore."

"You've got something on your mind, colonel?" The director mumbled as he tried hacking the console.

"Allow me," The colonel gestured for Faust to stand aside, who shook his head in resignation and heeded the colonel's request.

"Brute force again, Shepard?"

The colonel nodded his helmeted head rigidly. "The solution to all problems that can't be dealt with cunning." He strode up to the door and with a mighty heave, pried it off from its Ilyushinite hinges. He entered the dust-covered situation room and casted the door aside.

Before Faust could enter, Shepard halted him with an open gauntleted palm. The director arched his cybernetic eye's brow, to which Shepard explained,

"I wouldn't want you getting in here without something to protect your head, sir. I detect some varying levels of thin man poison surrounding the area, most likely from unattended gas grenades."

Faust smirked as he shook his head, declining a facemask a nearby agent offered to him. "Remember my accident? They had to replace my lungs too. I'm pretty sure I'm quite safe around thin man poison, colonel."

Shepard acquiesced, tilting his head to the side. "Touché. Head on in, director."

…

**_New Larkintown – XCOM Shanxi Branch – Situation Room_**

**_1500 hours_**

**_Colonel Jonathan Shepard_**

The colonel watched his agents pull up seats, dusting them off before sitting on them. Still outfitted in his suit of powered armor, Shepard couldn't very well seat himself, so he opted to just lean on a dusty piece of machinery mounted to the wall.

Shepard observed one of his agents, Junior Operator Trask, worked to get the giant vidscreen at the front of the situation room working again. The director was meaning to contact the Council of Systems spokesman, who surely had words for everyone in XCOM. Several minutes and numerous strings of curses later, the vidscreen still remained inactive. Shepard and the rest of the agents he took with him had resorted to idle conversation to pass the time.

"So, what now?" Corporal Shaun asked his comrades. "We've beaten back the x-rays and we've secured the colony. What happens to us next?"

"I think the Federation's going to try and lash out, take the fight to ET." Operator Dobrynin suggested. "They'll probably switch roles with the aliens and do the invading from now on, and we'll be probably assigned to assist in any way we can, breaking sieges and infiltrating high-security fortifications. That sort of stuff."

Lance Corporal Gregson folded his arms as he put his feet up another chair. "Nah, I don't think so. I think the Feds are just gonna turtle this one out, posting fucktons of ships and soldiers around all the colonies outside the Sol System, just like how we did things back in 21st century. What we'll probably get to do is that we'll be assigned as scouts; going further outside Federation-owned space to see what the aliens are up to, and how are we gonna counter that."

Shepard rested a hand on the pommel of his sword, putting the other on his helmet's chin. "I'd rather we be prepared for whatever the director needs of us. Although our jobs _would_ get much easier if the XCOM project fully reactivates. Last I've heard, the director caught word of the incoming alien invasion through an emergency broadcast, and it took several hours before he fully mobilized the troops for attack. If everyone weren't slacking off, we would've already sent more forces down here at a much earlier time, saving some lives in the process. Hell, the alien ground invasion might've never happened, even."

The agents all nodded in acknowledgement. "Yeah, but it's been like a hundred and forty years since second goddamn contact. You couldn't blame everyone for taking it easy." Agent Lewis noted casually. "Nobody saw this coming. If someone did, it would be us. What we need is to man up, gents. We've got big bloody shoes to fill."

"Well said." Shepard praised the agent, although sarcastically. "Why don't you tell that to the director himself? I'm sure he'd appreciate such suggestions."

The agent shrugged his shoulders as he relaxed into his seat. "Meh, I think he already knows what's wrong with XCOM. He's probably takin' strides to erase those wrongs. Soon, we'll be killin' aliens just like good ol' Ferdinand back in the day. If only they'd make implants that allow you to use the Gift, even if you're not Gifted…"

"I don't think that by simply having the Gift, it makes you superior to regular soldiers, Lewis." Shepard asserted. "You don't need the Gift to become better at what you do. Hard work, determination, courage and discipline; those are the things that make proper soldiers. If you have the luck to have them, psionics are just bonuses to what you can use in whatever it is you do."

"Hmph." Lewis scoffed lightly. "Still, it's pretty neat to have 'em." Suddenly, the agent realized something. An inappropriately large grin suddenly appeared on his face, behind his faceplate.

"That reminds me, scuttlebutt says that you and Karlotte are gonna tie the knot! Isn't that right, Shepard?" He teased the colonel, who promptly folded his arms into his armored chest and hung his head low. It was quite clear that he's bracing himself for something bad.

Lewis, who was noted for having quick, analytic eyes, immediately pressed his advantage. "Whoa, I thought you two were just seein' each other. I was _not_ expecting your relationship to be a lot err… well, deeper. Looks like scuttlebutt's right, for once."

The rest of the agents were now engrossed in the Shepard and Lewis' conversation, having halted theirs to listen to the two men a few minutes ago.

"A-ha! We've got Shepard by the balls!" Junior Agent Elyria Roux enthusiastically proclaimed, setting her seat down closer to Lewis' side. Shepard knew that Roux wouldn't stay uninformed for long. She was infamous for being a notorious gossip back at Schultz base, and even from her old unit in Terra Nova. Whatever happens that's considered significant to one's life, Roux would find out, one way or another. And if one is considered a friend to Roux, eventually, _they _would also know.

Senior Operator Cole Samson laughed heartily, reclining on his seat with a mirthful look on his face behind his helmet. "Ah, so the rumors were true, weren't they? Finally, after thirty-two years of loneliness and misery, the Gray Knight has finally let someone under his armor." Samson has been known to be a poet at heart, but sometimes he took all the wrong words and mashed them together in an appalling display of dreadful verses.

Lieutenant Laura Li seemed more wistful than excited at the news. "Just think of all the good things you could have, Shepard. You're having a Thierfelder as a wife." Through long periods of observation and the operations they shared together, Shepard learned that Nakamura took quite a liking for him, but he never reciprocated, having already been involved with Karlotte.

"Who knows, your kid might have psionics, Shepard." Senior Field Agent Johann Abrahamsson stated straightforwardly, never showing any sort of emotion as he meticulously filed his gauntlets' fingers into talons with a monomolecular-edged knife. "Every kid born in the Thierfelder family since 2021 were all positives for Gifted status. Raising your own psionic child might become a handful." Abrahamsson himself would know, Shepard thought. One of his daughters possessed the Gift.

Shepard shrugged his armored shoulders. "I wouldn't know anything about that, but it shouldn't be that hard. Karlotte says she's due soon, so I'll know exactly if you're right in a few months."

Suddenly, everybody fell silent. Shepard cursed himself for slipping his tongue. "Ehm, I was going to tell you, but-"

"You're… a father?" Lewis asked in a wistful tone, before adopting his usual boisterous way of speaking. "Now, that's just bloody great!" His voice then devolved into an undertone as he held his right gauntlet to his mouth in a whispering gesture. "Well, to you, Shepard. I wouldn't be caught dead with a kid of my own." He then started laughing. "What a great uncle I would be, teaching your kid how to kill aliens in a hundred different ways with an alloy cannon…"

Roux said nothing, for she was already tapping excitedly on her omni-tool, undoubtedly spreading the news to her colleagues either up in orbit of Shanxi, or back at Schultz Base. Shepard normally couldn't tolerate this sort of behavior, but since several others in XCOM already knew, he might as well let everybody know. He only hoped that Karlotte's brother, a commodore in the XCOM navy, would go easy on him.

Samson remained wordless, as he was deep in thought. He frequently broke out of his contemplation to raise a gloved finger as if he was about to say something fitting and lyrical, but he always hesitated before gradually putting his finger down once more. It seems that this time, he was at a loss for what to say, which is quite rare for him. Still, it's probably for the best, thought Shepard.

From the sound of her voice through her helmet, Li appears to have forced some enthusiasm into herself, and it pained Shepard to hear her like this. "Well, that's… great. By the way, is it a boy, or a girl?"

"It's a boy, Laura." Shepard answered, regretting that he can't at least show his face to her. "And Johann's right. Karlotte's expecting a Gifted child."

Abrahamsson continued filing his gauntlets as he spoke, "Ah, of course. After he's born, I might bring Eleanor up to teach him how to properly control his Gift. That way, he'd be less of a loose cannon if he inherited his father's traits."

Lewis chuckled as he rubbed his armored hands together. "Oh boy, here we go. Here comes the talk."

"Honestly, I don't know why you always have to go in the frontlines and put yourself in front of every hostile's gun, like you're some sort of superman. I don't know what's wrong with all the influx of agents who picked a sword over a proper gun." Abrahamsson stopped what he was doing, his tone already several octaves higher than his normal voice. "This is going to be XCOM's downfall, where everybody resorted to tactics that haven't been used in centuries while modern military tactics are cast aside to rot. Director Thierfelder might've saved the world back then, but I think he inadvertently doomed his future agents by introducing the Templar specialization. I mean, swords and shields… really? We've got plasma rifles and alloy cannons at our disposal! Come _on_, Shepard!"

Shepard waited a few seconds before turning his helmet's sound receptors back on. "Done yet, Johann?"

Suddenly, Abrahamsson remembered his place. "Yes, sir. Sorry, I just wanted to get that out of my chest."

Lewis chuckled at his colleague's expense. "If you think the Templar specialization should be thrown out a window, you need to remember how the ethereals used berserkers as shock troopers." He stated. "Thierfelder needed a way to counter those bastards, and because MEC troopers are kinda expensive and tough to make back then, he made Templars."

"Yeah, and it turns out that they worked real well at other tasks that don't include anti-berserker work." Roux supplied, just after covertly filming Abrahamsson's outburst with her omni-tool. "Who would've known that giving Meld-augmented agents a Tyrant, a Roshan and a suit of superheavy armor could make such effective shock troopers?"

"And that explains the existence of soldiers like me." Shepard finished. "If Thierfelder thought that we'd be a hindrance, he would've scrapped the project a century ago."

Abrahamsson sighed. "Yeah, I guess you people made your point. I still don't think it's a good idea, though."

"If it helps ease your mind a bit, some of us forgo the swords for assault rifles." Shepard added. "The shield stays, though. It helps with keeping the gun downrange, as well as the usual anti-projectile work it does."

"Gah, finally!" Trask shouted over at his corner. The agents turned their heads towards the operator, and found that he had finally managed to get the vidscreen working. It was already in the process of contacting the Council of Systems. "I can't believe how I'm the only one in this goddamn base with experience with fucking vidscreens!" He exclaimed, hands raised in the air. "Fixing this piece of shit only took me two hours!"

"Good job, Andy." Shepard shouted over to the operator. "Now, get down from there. That's the director's spot."

Seeing the vidscreen working again, Faust made his way up to it. "Thank you, colonel." He said as he passed Shepard and his agents.

"Thank Operator Andy. I had nothing to do with it." Shepard responded.

…

**_Situation Room_**

**_1600 hours_**

**_Director Faust_**

| Identifying… please wait. |

| Identified. XCOM Director FAUST, TYRONE. |

| The Council of Systems is processing your request. Please stand by. |

| Spokeswoman TIMMERMANS, SILKE will be greeting you shortly. |

Faust idly brushed off a piece of dust from his coat. A few seconds passed, and the vidscreen changed to view a silver-haired woman dressed in what seemed to be a crimson-hued, lavishly decorated dress. Behind her shoulder appeared to be the interiors of a fancy, luxurious restaurant, complete with customers lounging about, eating and conversing with each other.

"Looks like this might be a bad time." Faust remarked. "What, still in that honeymoon of yours, Silke?"

The spokeswoman groaned harshly. "_Yes_, commander. The third extraterrestrial attack on the human race, for reasons God only knows, coincided with my wedding, which ended a few hours ago. Truly, it's a pity that I'm the only person that spoke for the Council." She leaned further into the vidscreen. "I think your headquarters needs a good cleaning. It looks like it's been inactive for fifteen years, you know."

"I like the new look, actually." The director quipped. "Anyways, my forces assisted the Federation fleet that was sent to repel to Shanxi invasion. I take it that you've heard how it went?"

Silke downed a glass of green liquid from a stemmed glass she was holding in one hand. "Ah, yes. Good show, I must say. Your Director Thierfelder must be very proud, wherever he is right now."

"Indeed. Now, I'm asking you for directions. What would the Council have XCOM do now?"

The spokeswoman put a finger up and fished out a comm bead from her dress. Once she found it, she promptly inserted it on her ear. "Sir, it's Silke. Director Faust wants your input on the extraterrestrial affair. Hmm, hmm. Uh-huh… yes… of course, sir. I'll let him know right away." She took out the device from her ear and went back to the director.

"Through its contacts inside the Federation, the Council believes that the Feds are going to try retaliating against the aliens, commander. They want the aliens to see the extent of their mistakes at Shanxi. On the other hand, the Council wants your little band of agents to assist with the war effort, all the while maintaining secrecy of your existence."

Faust nodded. "Easy enough. Just like the 21st century."

"Not so fast," Silke shook a finger. "Firstly, the Council wants you to determine where exactly did the aliens came from; where are their most important colonies, shipyards and holdouts, that sort of business. You could accomplish this by either letting Dr. Garamond's motley band of college students to analyze the databanks inside the alien ships you've recovered, or you could send scouts to scour the void beyond human-owned space for the aliens. My recommendation for assisting the Federation? You should reactivate the Outsider project so you would have extra rifles pointed at the enemy. By now, you should have the MECT Project, and the GA Project reactivated, is that right?" Silke continued when Faust nodded in affirmative. "Good. As for the scouting business, all those Lotuses you have tucked away in your little underground fort at the Moon should come in handy for this sort of thing."

The director put a mechanical hand to his chin. "Lotuses are great and all, but I don't think unmanned drones can do the job better than human beings do. Plus, the Lotus design had always been prone to going haywire without human input for long periods of time."

"If you don't trust machines to give you accurate information, then you should have plenty of Voidlance pilots itching for some action." Silke suggested. "Just be careful when deploying them. Remember the British during Hitler's siege on their island? Skilled pilots can be hard to replace."

"I'll keep that in mind. Anything else important I need to know?"

The spokeswoman pondered for a moment before responding, "Also, since mass relays could be used by aliens as a way to get to our colonies much quicker, as of now, the Federation is posting a total of twenty frigates, thirty cruisers, two carriers and if the colony's important or populous enough, a single dreadnought, in orbit of each of the colonies outside the Sol System. Right now, Fed scientists are trying to find a way to disable or dismantle the relays somehow. They're doing it with utmost care, though. Some recent research on the relays show that if you mess with one of them bad enough, it could catastrophically explode, utterly destroying the system it was in, so you can expect progress to be a tad bit slower than expected."

"Also, Federation military officials contacted us recently, saying that they were paying handsomely for an intact, corpse-free alien ship – preferably anything bigger than a cruiser." She added. "I assume your forces have already retrieved those alien ships that were rendered crewless after Admiral Hackbar's drone attack?"

Faust huffed in irritation. "Yeah, we've got almost all of them, but three of the ships, two cruisers and a frigate, went missing just an hour after our forces repelled the aliens. Somebody got to them before us."

"Curious," Silke chirped. "But insignificant. We could probably chalk that up to civilian opportunists looking for a hasty salvage for credits or whatnot." She took a quick glance at the time on her omni-tool. "I'm supposed to be doing some… personal affairs, but I ended up discussing mindless military matters with a one-eyed, one-armed, washed up old veteran. Now, Tyrone, if you'll excuse me, my husband is getting impatient."

The director laughed. "Go and have fun, then. But for God's sake, I hope you're right. There's a group of lunatics out there who'd kill to get their hands on alien tech."

_..._

**_The Primarch's Office - Palaven_**

**_July 05__th__, 2157 – 1800 hours_**

**_Admiral Aureliana Nandrakan_**

"-and what's worse, their weapons are practically unsalvageable. Whenever you find yourself lucky enough to kill one of their foot soldiers, their weapons self-destruct in your hands if you try using it yourself, and if you just left the damn things unattended for more than five minutes, they explode into pieces anyway." Admiral Lina recounted Lieutenant Victus' story to her to the best of her ability.

"We could still take the plating off of their armor, though. Before we retreated, my fleet took several samples of these strange alien alloys from the destroyed alien ships and some of the dead enemy combatants my troops on the ground dispatched. We've also retrieved some bodies for our scientists to look at."

Primarch Valerius nodded stiffly. He had been planning to cut Lina's story short once he heard enough absurdities, but her story seemed to contain undeniable nuggets of truth in them, which made the primarch listen to her story for much more than what he had planned. Looking at his chrono, he learned that he'd already spent at least two hours listening to the admiral. "Yes, I've seen the bodies from an e-mail Dr. Jaralan sent me some hours ago. I wasn't sure if it was authentic at first, because they looked like recolored asari."

"Yes, that baffled me when I first saw it, too." Lina added. "Speaking of the asari… this is the first time the Hierarchy's forces have ever been kept from an objective. Should the other Council races know of this?"

Valerius sank on his chair, pondering over his options. If word gets out that the supposedly invincible Turian Navy managed to find itself preposterously vanquished by a newcomer alien fleet, the humiliation and degradation the entire turian race would be subjected to would be too much for most to bear. Despite what he just heard from Lina, Valerius is still confident that his race would prove triumphant in the end. It was several seconds before he came up with,

"…No. At least, not yet." The primarch ran a hand over his head crest and exhaled. "You've given me an account that strangely lacked most of the incongruities and falsehoods I have come to expect. In fact, your story seemed to fit together quite perfectly with the evidence you and your men supplied."

Valerius saw the subtle hopeful expression that presented itself on Lina's face. It saddened him to crush it. "However, your soldiers' descriptions about alien 'mind-powers' seemed to be mere fabrications of their minds, brought on by the hellish conditions of the battlefield they were in, as you described it. Also, these apparent gene-augmentation technologies these new arrivals possessed were completely false; Dr. Jaralan noted that their genetic structures were vastly different compared to ours, but he knew well enough to determine that there were no bio-augmentations made on the bodies, inside or out."

"Hmph," The admiral scoffed. "Primarch, I thought of the same thing when General Zeliszek described his experiences to me, but he's extremely adamant that what his men, himself included, experienced. This couldn't be a mere coincidence if several hundred of my soldiers felt the same agonizing thing crossing their minds at the exact same time. And the bodies we've brought with us were from the lower-ranking foot soldiers we've managed to hastily haul to the evac shuttles. The ones that Battlegroup Kayagkar dissected were lost when they were forced to pull back. If you don't believe me, then I'm sure you'll get to see for yourself in the near future very soon."

Primarch Valerius sat frozen on his desk, one hand supporting his head, and the other tapping on the metal desk in a rhythmic pattern. He seemed deep in thought, which is surprising, Lina thought. Even if she'd die this day or the day after, there _might_ just be hope for the turian race as of now.

Finally, after several minutes of contemplation in eerie silence, Valerius made a decision. "I'd like to exonerate you, Aureliana." He said, his tone sincere. "You must believe me, I really do. What happened on Relay 314 is a mistake; the Hierarchy should never have made the decision to open fire on these new arrivals, and you and your fleet paid the price for it. The most logical thing I could do is to absolve you of all supposed "crimes" you've done, but the other primarchs would surely prevent me from doing so. You see, after your testimony, I'm most likely the only primarch that does not want you immediately seen to death, but if I make the action of absolving you, then I'm afraid the other primarchs, not to mention most of the turian race, will most probably violently protest against me."

The primarch sighed. "Looks like you'll be facing the firing squad tomorrow afternoon, admiral. I'm sorry."

Lina appeared indifferent to her impending death. "As long as you take my report seriously and make preparations accordingly, I can leave this world in peace. I will not resist."

"I admire your courage, admiral." The primarch replied, commendably. "You'll get what you desired. Our fleet might've been beaten back, but the aliens haven't heard the last of us. Tomorrow, after I give my orders to the fleet for a proper counter-attack, I'll see to it that all of our defenses are primed and prepared for combat. Soon, all of turian-owned space will be bristling with weaponry, and you can be assured that we won't be beaten. We might have lost a battle, but the turians always win the war."

"For the Spirits' sake, I hope you're right." Lina said, somewhat doubtfully. "Take care of our people, Valerius."

…

**_Sea of Tranquillity – The Moon – XCOM Main_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0300 hours_**

**_Dr. Arthur Garamond, XCOM chief scientific researcher, xenotechnological expert_**

With his usual stiffly irremovable frown plastered on his face, Dr. Garamond irritably entered the combination for the doors to Director Faust's office, mentally cursing the man himself for having these security measures in the first place. To say that the doctor was a bitter man would be an understatement. He was a crippled, terminally ill person, but due to bizarre biological quirks firmly imbedded in his genetic structure, he couldn't apply cybernetics or gene mods to himself to alleviate his problems, as his body would only violently reject them.

As Garamond waited for the console to recognize his code, he heard familiar clanking sounds fast approaching from behind. He inwardly cursed the director again for making him stay in close proximity to the idiot about to close in on him.

"Here to visit the director too?" Dr. Maksim Shevchenko, a man who replaced most of his body with an eight-legged mechanical frame that gave him a distinctive spider-like appearance, trilled in, rolling his R's. To his consternation, Dr. Garamond was forced to spend most of his time with Shevchenko, as he was the head researcher, and Shevchenko is the chief engineer.

"Well, what does it look like to you, tin man?" Garamond venomously spat out.

To further Garamond's hate against Shevchenko, the mostly mechanical man seemed completely immune to the head researcher's hostile attitude, and always appeared to be perpetually happy. "It looks like you are about to give your findings to the director, doctor. Just like me." He chirped, as usual for him.

"Nice observation." The head researcher sarcastically remarked.

The console to the reinforced doors finally chimed affirmative. The doors folded open, revealing Director Faust, in the process of recalibrating his cybernetic eye with his omni-tool, and his bare hands.

"Gentlemen?" Faust greeted, before a squirt of dark orange fluid shot from his mechanical eye, splattering a nearby bookcase. He seemed to not care. "You've got something for me?"

The two doctors strode their way to the director's desk. Garamond took longer than his engineering counterpart, as he relied on a cane to move around, while Shevchenko made use of mechanical arachnid legs. Before Shevchenko could even speak, Garamond cut him off abruptly, upon reaching the director.

"My team has completed analysis of the alien databases inside the wrecks you provided us. I must remind you that the data is incomplete; most of them were too damaged." The doctor straightforwardly reported to Faust. "Basing our work on the information we retrieved from our recent strings of interrogations, we've managed to create a sophisticated translation program for the language the aliens used, which appeared to be called "Vextrenese". Moreover, from several different sources, we've determined that the aliens themselves are called "turians"."

Faust momentarily stopped what he was doing, setting his omni-tool down. "That it, doctor?"

Garamond shook his head. "No, sir. On your orders, we began searching for important bases and military installations our agents could infiltrate. These are the places." The doctor fished for a datapad on his labcoat, handing it over to Faust when he found it.

Faust took in the information on the datapad. It seemed that the aliens were more numerous than he had previously envisioned, and more widespread, too. The closest concentration of aliens to human-owned space seemed to be in the Triton Cluster, in the Olympus System, in an agrarian planet called Drekplaats. It appeared that the turians possessed a series of military bases somewhere in the planet's surface. What the bases' functions are remained unknown.

Along with Morningstar in the neighboring Trotsky System, Drekplaats was planned for colonization in the early 2100's due to the ideal conditions for human life that it possessed. However, the Federation decided that its resources would rather be spent on consolidating its grip on other systems, and as a result, the Triton Cluster remained untouched by human hands. Not even a single scout probe passed it, as the cluster was deemed too unimportant to be of note compared to other star clusters elsewhere in Federation-owned space.

"Fine work, doctor." Shevchenko praised his scientific counterpart, who only grimaced in annoyance. Immediately after, he delivered his own report.

"With the salvaged alien cruisers and the dreadnought wreck you have provided my team with, we have discovered that the aliens use superheavy ship-mounted versions of the obsolete Kingfisher-pattern railguns our MEC agents used to make do with back in the Great Ethereal War. Just an hour ago, we have been able to improve upon our own mass accelerator weapons technologies using the aliens' designs as a guide, though I am afraid that their mass-acceleration technologies are much more fleshed-out than our own. But that is not what is important. The engineering team had also envisioned upon our own versions of anti-projectile "kinetic barriers" for our ground forces and for some of our smaller vessels, basing our designs on what these turians possessed. Of course, our version is only a prototype; it could only work against the aliens' projectile-based weapons, and is completely useless against ship-based directed energy weapons common within all Federation militaries. With your permission, we could give our insights to Dr. Arthur's researchers, and then we could eventually make kinetic barriers available to all Federation forces, including ourselves."

"Consider your new project approved, then." Faust immediately replied. "Good work, you two. Is there anything else you could give me?"

"Yes," A sudden voice on the intercom began. It was Central Officer Deckardson, Faust's second-in-command. "Our Voidlance scouts beyond the Shanxi-Theta relay report that there's a build-up of turian activity in all of hostile space. It appears that they're preparing for a counter-attack on Shanxi today."

Just when Faust thought that this day couldn't be any more worse, what with the media constantly trying to find out who were the "other" ships assisting the Federation in Shanxi, another alien incursion is in the works. "Well… shit. Is the Federation Navy still in Shanxi?"

"Most of them, yes." Deckardson told her director. "The _Annihilation _and about five hundred Federation vessels are on guard near the colony, with seven of them being Fredrickson-class dreadnoughts. The other two hundred vessels have fallen back to their previous posts, presumably to regroup and rearm. The ships you've previously sent to the colony remained on standby, and the _Old One_ is currently hiding somewhere in the system's asteroid belt."

"How many of our forces are available for an attack, then?" Faust asked.

"About… fifty-three ships of varying classes are down at the hangar, inactive. Among those ships are three hunter-carriers and a dreadnought. In addition, three hundred units of Hellstrider-class mectopods are prepped for combat, and four thousand of our inactive agents are awaiting your orders, director." Deckardson answered, in her usual forthright way of speaking.

The director took a minute as he pondered over what to do. He began with, "…Right, I want half of our reserve force ready for an invasion. If the aliens were as pathetic as Shanxi proved them to be, our forces should have little problems with what I'm about to order them to do."

_..._

* * *

**_HEILONG CLUSTER/SHANXI-THETA SYSTEM/SPACE_**

**_FNWS Nikola Tesla – The Mess Hall_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0800 hours_**

**_First Lieutenant Steven Hackett – recently promoted Raven Squad leader, acting leader for the Corvus Corax platoon_**

"Hey lieutenant, what do you think about the new guys?" Staff Sergeant Steiner asked, gesturing to the three soldiers decked in full suits of exoframes over at the table on the far side of the mess hall. They looked like they were planning something instead of enjoying their lunch, as illustrated by the miniature holo-display of the Shanxi-Theta System at the center of their table.

Hackett grunted and put a hand over his stubbled chin as his response. He wasn't sure what to feel about these "special-ops" boys he found himself working with. He knew too little about them to see them in any sort of light, but he did recognize that they were equipped with armaments that are several leagues superior to any military division in the Federation in almost every aspect. When they showed up out of nowhere when the _Nikola Tesla_ and the rest of the Federation vessels were engaged with the first alien fleet, they immediately turned the fight into a hasty victory for the Federation forces before promptly attaching themselves to the fleet, serving as "extra hands" like what Admirals Draynor and Drescher told everyone over fleetcom.

"I don't trust them," Hackett admitted. "But they're on our side. That's what matters."

"But seriously, you see the tech they're packing around? They make our guns look like the ones the protheans use." Private First Class Hendricks said as he glared at the soldiers. Suddenly, an idea formed in his head. "You guys remember that old conspiracy theory about black-ops personnel appearing out of nowhere in the 21st century and helping out with the whole alien-killing business?" He asked, in his most serious tone.

Hackett nodded. "Yeah, it's in the extranet, right? They're apparently called "XCOM" aren't they?"

Hendricks clicked his fingers. "That's it! I think these guys might be XCOM." He jokingly suggested.

Everyone in Hackett's table turned silent for several seconds before breaking into boisterous laughter at the absurdity of Hendricks' suggestion. But when they had their fill, suddenly they realized that Hendricks' proposal might not be that far from the truth. They sneaked glances at the soldiers, trying to find any sort of badges on their armor, but to no avail. Their exoframes have no visible markings that could betray their true affiliations besides some scratches and dents that indicated that they recently saw combat with the aliens.

"Maybe we should ask them." Steiner proposed. "They seem pretty decent for faceless elites. I heard from some of the other guys that one of them gave him mods for his plasma rifle and some spare Elerium charges to test the mods with."

"Problem is, _who_ should talk to them." Corporal Wernher said. "I call for the lieutenant. He's the people person in this table."

Pretty soon, all of Hackett's comrades are loudly calling for him to get off the table and talk to the newcomers himself, like some twisted version of the classical high school dare, but this time, instead of the lady he had taken a fancy to, it's a group of hulking soldiers in exoframes Hackett needed to introduce himself to.

Sighing in exasperation and raising his arms in surrender, Hackett slowly got up from his seat, picked up his food tray and made his way towards the newcomers, his squadmates cheering him on as he did.

…

**_FNWS Nikola Tesla – Mess Hall_**

**_0800 hours_**

**_Colonel Thierfelder_**

The psionic colonel chucked the last of her ration bars into her mouth. She had her faceplate partially folded into her suit, exposing the lower half of her face.

"So, yeah." Lewis concluded. "We're gonna be knee-deep in shit in a few hours again. The Fed grunts don't know about it yet, but the higher-ups are doing their best to spread the news." He devoured a large chunk of his omelette lunch before continuing, "By the way, how'd your little chat with the dino-bird go?" He said as he munched on his food.

Karlotte smirked. "He was extremely stiff at first, his mind's hard to penetrate, even. But it was easy cracking through his mental defenses when I implanted a few visions I cooked up just for him. Needless to say, I learned a lot about him and his race today."

"Did'ya kill him then?" Lewis asked.

Karlotte cheerfully shook her head. "No, he's still down at the interrogation room with the others. I think his name's "Vespasius", or "Vespasian", or something similar. From the memories he had in his head, he isn't like the cloned, mindless, disposable aliens our ancestors fought in the 21st century. He's got a mind of his own, you know?"

Shepard frowned. "Have you found any reasons as to why they attacked us? Are they part of the ethereals' forces?"

The psionic colonel shrugged her armored shoulders. "Well, I think they're attacking us because we broke some sort of rule, or something. From what I could tell, little Vespucci had never even heard of ethereals."

"Some sort of rule?" Shepard incredulously asked. "They're willing to make war because of some stupid rule that we have no clue abou—"

"Ehem." A voice from a Federation soldier standing near the XCOM agents' table cut Shepard off. He was wearing the attire of a moderately high-ranking officer, holding a tray full of food.

"Mind if I sit here?" He asked, gesturing to an empty seat next to Shepard. Karlotte couldn't help but admire the man's audacity; no other Federation soldier had the brass to approach the scary-looking soldiers in powered armor. However, closer inspection of the man proved that he's no ordinary soldier; plenty of fresh scars marred his face, the tip of his ring finger appeared to have been shot off and his eyes gave off a faint orange glow, evidence to the Meld-augmented eyes he possessed.

"Not at all." Shepard coolly responded, moving himself closer to Karlotte to give the man some extra space.

The man gave his thanks taking the seat he had his sights on. "I'm Hackett, by the way. You guys have names?"

Lewis had to physically move his dropped jaw back to its original position before snapping himself back to reality. "Yeah, the name's Henry."

"My name's Karlotte." The psionic colonel sunnily introduced herself as she fully folded her helmet into her suit. "I'm a psionic."

Hackett was taken by surprise, but he composed himself in short order. Psionics are quite hard to come by, and psionic individuals serving in a military force were just as rare. "I see. How about you?" He asked Shepard.

Shepard didn't bother removing his helmet or looking at Hackett as he focused on preparing for a big event in the future. "It's Shepard." He plainly said. "Is there any particular reason why you chose to sit with us?" He dully asked.

Karlotte sent a small amount of mindfray into Shepard's mind, causing him to flinch slightly. It was her way of letting him know that she doesn't like what he's doing. "Don't mind Jonathan. He always does this to people he just met." She said to Hackett.

Hackett doesn't seem to mind, however. "It's fine, really. I'm just here because I've got a few—"

"Attention all Federation Navy personnel!" Admiral Drescher's voice broadcasted over the fleetcom, forcing Hackett to drop his sentence. "This is Admiral Drescher speaking. Be advised, Admiral Draynor and I have just received word from Federation HICOM about our situation; the aliens are mobilizing for a counter-attack on Shanxi. I repeat: this system will be _writhing_ with activity a few hours from now. Men, stay with your units and prepare to receive further orders. I recommend you to do whatever it is you need doing before the coming storm. Drescher out."

Hackett, upon hearing Drescher's announcement, stuffed his questions away and began to wordlessly consume his lunch. _I guess this is to be expected. _He thought. _It would be one hell of a war if it only lasted a couple of hours. _The XCOM agents he had for company quietly understood and went back to what they're doing earlier. Lewis went over a file sent by Director Faust to his omni-tool before proclaiming,

"Well, well. Look at this." He enlarged the holo-display of the file, showing it to his two fellow agents. "The commander's trying to embed every last soldier he had with Fed units so we can work with them better – know how we can coordinate with them and "develop good working relationships", that sort of rubbish. This thing says that I'm assigned to Rhino squad, whatever that is."

Hackett downed a glass of apple juice before saying, "Rhino's over at that table." He pointed at a group of soldiers northwest of the mess hall, who were in the process of checking over their guns. "They specialize with close quarters combat and such. They saved my soldiers' asses a couple of times, but they're too reckless for my liking."

Lewis grunted in an appreciative way. "Looks like we'll get along just fine."

Karlotte chuckled at the disapproving look on Hackett's face before checking over her orders, and what squad she was assigned to. When she saw the file, she was relieved to know that the director at least knows about her relationship with Shepard, as he had assigned her and the colonel with the same squad. "Any idea where Raven squad is?"

…

**_Surface of D-class asteroid "B712937-196404"_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0830 hours_**

**_The Old One – callsigned: "Worldsmith" _**

"Such curious creatures, you are. My creators have seen their share of strange creatures; you are not the first." She said in a flat, colorless tone, as characteristic for her. Furthermore, the absurd level of volume on her external speakers made her efforts to sound friendly and approachable seem the exact opposite – threatening and ominous. "Could you tell me what made your race decide to attack my creators? They have done nothing wrong, and yet, you open fired on them."

"What did your kind had hoped to accomplish in making such an act?" With the translators she downloaded and implemented upon herself from Dr. Garamond's e-mail to her, she knew her "conversation partners" completely understood what she said.

The Old One, or "Carolyn", as she preferred her creators to call her, had been holding a turian frigate on one of her smaller tentacles, with the turian crew still inside, with a colossal, greenish-blue eye of hers trained directly at the them through the reinforced windows, observing and studying their every move.

However, instead of answering her like she wanted to, the aliens remained silent as they stared at the giant mechanical squid outside of their craft, the comical-looking expression of fear and shocked disbelief plastered on their faces, or at least, that's how Carolyn perceived them to be, given how unfamiliar their faces looked compared to her creators' own.

Carolyn gave a deep, synthesized sigh, something she mimicked from Dr. Garamond. "You know, there is nothing stopping me from crushing your little spacecraft right now, and by what has transpired in the past few days, I _should _crush your vessel right now." She slightly increased the pressure her tentacle was giving for emphasis, eliciting a metallic groan from the frigate and causing the aliens within it move around in panicked motions, trying in vain to make their ship slip out of Carolyn's mechanical grasp.

"But do not fear. You are my defenseless prisoners, and it is not fair to harm the likes of you." Carolyn said, just as she attached some of her fuel ports into the turian frigate, depositing some of her power, making the craft spaceworthy again. "Your friends are most likely going to make a return to this system. They should be just a relay away from here."

To the complete bafflement and confusion of the turian crew, Carolyn released the craft they were in, gently putting it down on B712937-196404's surface.

"You have no use for me, you are free to see yourself out of this system. Have a nice day." Carolyn said, giving the turian frigate a light tap to the hull to shake the turians out of their puzzled trance. When the aliens realized that their chances of escaping had gone much better than they were hoping for, it didn't take them a second to ignite their engines and speed their way away from Carolyn's asteroid, into the general direction of the Shanxi-Theta Relay.

"Very curious." The sentient vessel chirped to herself, moving a tentacle to the underside of her head portion to imitate some of the scientists charged with tending to her. She eventually stopped viewing her recording of the turian crew's frightened antics after seeing it about a quarter of a million times when a sudden voice was patched through to her internal communications receiver.

"Worldsmith," The voice, belonging to Colonel Shepard, the highest-ranking soldier in the Shanxi-Theta system, rasped. "There have been reports that the Shanxi-Theta relay is charging up for activity. The turians are coming. We need you ready for this."

Carolyn never got used to interacting with Shepard. He was always too professional and straight to the point for her liking, but at a time like this, her cooperation is invaluable. "I am prepared, colonel. Would you like me to move in to position?"

Shepard took a few seconds to respond, "You do that. How much charge have you got left in your cloak module?"

"About seventy-three percent, colonel. I have not gotten around to using it in the initial engagement, so I have plenty in reserve." Carolyn answered. "If you do not mind, I will proceed with my orders now."

…

**_HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished, Post-FTL transit – in the Shanxi-Theta Relay's perimeter_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0900 hours_**

**_Admiral Galvocius Tresdin – admiral in charge of the turian invasion fleet – Jarrakus Mondranor Legion_**

"Looks like they're waiting for us." Admiral Galvocius said, peering over the _Lamentations_' windows. "And it looks like they're busy."

Clearly visible amongst the alien fleet is the wreckage of several hundred turian vessels. The aliens were not wasting any time trying to salvage anything of use within the destroyed ships, as indicated by numerous salvage shuttles zooming back and forth amongst the ruins and into the bigger alien vessels, undoubtedly full of anything they deemed useful enough to take. Curiously, some turian vessels were also being salvaged, but they appeared to be mostly undamaged.

Inwardly, the turian admiral found himself repulsed at these new aliens. He expected them to behave somewhat like the krogan, maybe even a little bit like his own people basing solely on their military might and what little information that was retrieved from the survivors of the expeditionary fleet, but instead of retrieving their deceased from the shipwrecks and leaving the empty hulks themselves to float in space as a reminder of the battle that occurred like turians and krogan do, they're doing what the quarians were normally found doing.

Surely if they're truly powerful enough to deal with Admiral Nandrakan's fleet, they should have no use for rummaging through the honored dead.

At first, Galvocius was skeptical of the true power of the alien fleet at first, but now that he had visual evidence of their might, his confidence faltered in short order. He was not trained to fight a superior force, like all turian admirals put in charge of more than one dreadnought. The most powerful force he ever saw was an overfunded Terminus Systems criminal empire, which had enough credits to make themselves two ramshackle dreadnoughts to further their nefarious goals.

"Alright, set us in nice and close," He ordered, struggling to maintain the air of poise and confidence his crew once had, before they entered the relay. "They haven't seen us yet, so we should have the element of—"

Unfortunately for the turian fleet, the aliens weren't unaware of the turian counter-attack. They were simply waiting for Galvocius' vessels to move closer before letting fly with the full compliment of their strange and terrifying arsenal of directed energy weapons. Almost instantly some of the smaller turian ships were put out of commission when their eezo cores were ignited by direct hits from plasma cannons, their hulls and kinetic barriers powerless to resist energy weapons fire.

Galvocius struggled to maintain his footing as enemy projectiles perforated his own ship. Shields showed complete 100%, but the hull sustained significant damage, a testament to the superiority of the alien fleet. _If the aliens completely bypassed my ships' main source of protection from enemy fire, how could we turians compete with these aliens on equal footing?_ The admiral thought, before banishing those pessimistic thoughts from his mind. _With discipline and superior tactics and training, that's what._

With adrenaline coursing through his body, the admiral began issuing orders left and right, and he was rightly obeyed forthwith. "Comms, tell the damned fleet to break pattern and assume Stalwart Predator formation!"

"Already on it, admiral!" The comm officer called out from his stations.

"Navigator, take defensive maneuvers, don't let the bastards hit us! Divert all of our reserve power into the engines; we need to get closer to them before they get a chance to get a shot at our ship!"

"Right away, sir!" The lead navigator did a quick salute before running to attend to his orders.

The admiral patched his voice through the ship-wide comms. "Gunnery crew, man your battle stations, I want every man prepared for combat! Marines, if the reports about these aliens are right, they'll make every effort to disable and board this ship; I want you to be ready for that!"

"Aye, admiral!" Soldiers and crewmen from all over the _Lamentations' _all voiced out, eager to see just how _accurate_ Admiral Nandrakan's report is.

The second battle for Shanxi raged once more. Admiral Galvocius' fleet edged closer and closer to the alien colony, but the alien defenders never let up the fire. Soon enough, the aliens mobilized some of their ships and began to meet their aggressors head-on. Predictably, the aliens were aiming to board every enemy ship they could get their hands on.

Galvocius occupied himself by doing what admirals at these situations usually do: trying to maintain order and morale amongst his ship, while trying to relay his orders as quickly and efficiently as he could.

"Sir, I'm detecting something big moving around our fleet," The senior tech officer interrupted. "It's moving fast in some sort of pattern, stalking us. Its approximate distance from us is ten kilometers."

Galvocius' attention was immediately diverted to the tech officer. "What? How come you didn't detect it earlier? Our sensors could pick up ships from ten _thousand_ kilometers away!"

"I don't know, sir!" The tech officer answered, just as the distance from the unknown object closed in to six kilometers. "Whatever it is, it doesn't have any heat emissions; it must be a stealth ship of some kind."

The admiral had heard enough. He was about to give the order to flush out the stealth ship with blind fire, when the subject in hand had chosen to reveal itself.

…

**_In the ranks of the alien invasion fleet_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0930 hours_**

**_The Old One_**

Carolyn appeared out of cloak, to the surprise of the whole turian fleet. They were too shocked out of their minds to comprehend what just happened, giving the sentient seeker ship enough time to charge up her main gun. _Do I really look _that_ strange?_ She spoke to herself.

With precision that could only be made by a synthetic mind, Carolyn made a direct hit to the enemy command dreadnought's engines, thoroughly scorching it in plasma. With its main mode of navigation taken out, the dreadnought was dead in the water.

Immediately, the alien ships formed into firing positions optimal for a killing blow on their aggressor, but before they could so much as retaliate in full, Carolyn had already moved herself towards another nearby dreadnought, quickly enveloping it in her mechanical appendages. The sentient starship braced herself for a salvo of enemy fire, just after she positioned herself so that she would not be damaged severely, but the dreadnought she had taken hostage will.

She could practically hear the turian crew's screams as she used the vessel as a shield against its allies. Her tentacles were hit, but with the same material used to make the ethereal Temple Ship coating her, the damage meted out to Carolyn was minimal enough to be ignored.

"Colonel, I have completed my part of the plan." Carolyn patched through to Shepard, whose forces should already be collaborating with the Federation fleet. "You should do yours now. Worldsmith, out."

"Roger, Worldsmith. I see the target." Shepard immediately responded. Sometimes, even the Old One thought the colonel was secretly a machine. "Are you sure it's disabled? Is the main gun out of the action as well?"

"Stand by," Carolyn pointed one of her spare tentacles at the command dreadnought, one that was affixed with several dozen Canary plasma assault cannons. The guns fired simultaneously, like an infantry firing line. Since the entirety of the dreadnought was built around on the main gun, the projectiles were aimed directly at the center of the ship and the only visible portion of the main gun protruding from the tip of the vessel. Since these turians seemed to never bother with decent ship plating, the bright green energy projectiles had no trouble crippling the alien vessel further.

"It is done." The Old One monotonously droned. "I will be overwhelmed if I stay here any further. I must retreat." When she knew the vessel she was holding couldn't withstand any more hits from its fellow ships, she crippled its life support systems before flinging it away, back into the enemy fleet's ranks. Hopefully, it would destroy a few frigates as it hurtled across the void.

"I think you might've done too much damage," Shepard rasped. "Whenever you get the opportunity, tell Dr. Shevchenko to give you a couple of EMP cannons, Worldsmith. You'll need them in the future."

"I was made to kill," Carolyn casually replied. "Not to disable." With an electric crackle, the sentient starship disappeared from sight, fading into the void, nary but the trail of destruction she left behind as the only evidence that she appeared at all.

…

**_Armory – XWS Mednikov Vladislavich Ilyushin – Luciana-class hiveship_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0930 hours_**

**_Colonels Shepard and Karlotte – on purge trooper duty, attached to Raven squad_**

"So, uh… I'm new to this "purge trooper" thing," Hackett began. "What're we supposed to do?"

Raven squad, composed of Lieutenant Hackett and his team, walked with Shepard and Karlotte through an XCOM hiveship's armory, even as the second battle for Shanxi raged outside the ship's utilitarian gray walls. The two colonels and the Federation soldiers have already been in contact with each other for enough time to get themselves adequately acquainted together, and yet, Karlotte still had a roving suspicion that the Federation soldiers she and her fellow colonel were attached to remained unaware of who they are, and who did they work for.

"We're supposed to be in charge of clearing any alien vessel we've managed to disable of any hostiles." The psionic colonel answered. "We'll be jumping out of an airlock in Iconoclast suits, which were designed specifically for purge trooper duty. The soar packs we'll be wearing like backpacks are our main form of navigation while in space. From your service records, you and your team have had extensive experience with soar packs, am I right?"

"Yes, we've been involved in Operations Hammerhead and Jakarta." Hackett responded with a hint of pride in his tone, as if he was expecting Karlotte to know about the operations he partook in. "We had to use soar packs to get to an elevated EXALT outpost, but wait, why can't some of your normal soldiers do that? Haven't some of your guys done that already during the first engagement?" The lieutenant asked.

"Why do you need soldiers specialized for ship-boarding actions? Can't you just send a few MEC troopers in and be done with it?"

"That's because unlike those soldiers two days ago, they're taking prisoners." Karlotte enthusiastically explained. "As purge troopers, it's in our name. To put it simply, we don't."

Suited in a lumbering, tube-lined, bulky exoframe, with a cumbersome-looking soar pack attached to the back, and with a few customized touches to accommodate his preferred method of combat, Shepard crossed the distance between the team and a man-sized canister mounted on the wall, which had similar devices lining up adjacent to it to the right. Pulling a lever with a gauntleted hand, the canister's doors opened. After the cloud of steam cleared, it revealed a suit of armor similar to what the colonel is equipped with.

"You'll be wearing that," Karlotte gestured at the suit inside the canister. Like Shepard, she was wearing the same suit, albeit significantly less geared for combat, and she had her faceplate slid up, exposing her face. "While we're out there in space. It's too bulky and unwieldy for planetside use, but since we're in space, it should be a lot easier to use."

"Yeah, but why does it have to be _that_ big?" Corporal Wernher asked. "Can't they just make… I don't know, lighter versions of the suit?"

"I'm not an engineer, but I do know that if any stray enemy ship-based weapon manages to hit you while you're out there in the void, then there isn't going to be anything left of you to bury. This armor is at least durable enough to withstand a few shots of a ship-mounted plasma cannon." Shepard said, his already raspy voice becoming more monstrous when filtered through his faceplate. "And since enemy projectiles tend to be quite plenty, you _will_ need the protection this armor provides."

"I'm not really trained to wear any sort of heavy combat suits, much less a heavy combat-slash-vacuum exoframe hybrid." Staff Sergeant Steiner admitted. "I'm more of a recon and explosive specialist more than anything."

Shepard looked down on the sergeant, who was several inches shorter than him. She looked up at him fearfully, but she masked her anxiety quite well. "Are you augmented?" He plainly asked.

"We all are." Hackett pointed at his unnatural eyes as he answered for Steiner. "We've been getting all sorts of crap from the regulars because of it too."

The colonel nodded, ignoring the lieutenant's last statement. "Good. The Iconoclast isn't made to be worn by unaugmented personnel. Having augs is all you'll ever need to be proficient in wearing the armor."

"Really?" Private Hendricks doubtfully queried, arms across his chest. "So it feels like you're wearing ay other sort of armor?"

Karlotte snapped her metal fingers. "Exactly! Although, you do need to wear your regular armor under it, because the Iconoclast won't give you anything to stop the cold like your own armor does." She informed.

"Also, you won't be making use of any of your usual weapons today. The Iconoclast comes equipped with its own built-in armaments… as you can clearly see." She pointed to the missile launcher attached to her shoulder. "Jon will demonstrate."

"Right," Shepard drawled. He displayed his right gauntlet. It had peculiar hilt-like devices to one side and underside it. "I had my armor tailored to suit me. The ones you'll be getting would most likely be unmodified."

With a mechanical _clack, _from the device to the side of the gauntlet emerged a plasma cannon. Raven squad seemed only a little bit impressed, but that was before the device below the gauntlet revealed a vicious-looking chainsaw-like armament. The colonel revved it up menacingly, and in response, it roared a hideous growling sound, audibly thirsting for alien flesh.

Steiner gasped in surprise. Shepard smirked behind his faceplate. "The teeth are made from the same material as my sword, and are, as always, covered in an energy field. I use this thing whenever I need to tear open a bulkhead. It's called a hullsaw." He powered both of his instruments down before retracting them back into his gauntlet.

"Now, about your own suits, there should be a handle that goes over your arms, into your hands. You just need to clench it to activate whatever weapon you have built on your suit. Hackett, you should put yours now to show your team how it works."

Hackett nodded and went over to the canister. He tried to lift the suit by itself, but it was too heavy, even with his armor and his augs to help him.

"Hey," the lieutenant called out. "I need a little help over here."

"There should be a knob over the collar," Karlotte helpfully informed. "It should activate the eezo power core inside the armor."

Hackett said his thanks before pressing said button. Instantly, the suit weighed significantly lighter, allowing the lieutenant to lock each individual piece of the Iconoclast over his armor. By the time he was done, he felt at least two feet taller, as every part of his body was sealed inside the exoframe.

Shepard looked over the lieutenant in his armor. Technically, all XCOM equipment couldn't be supplied to Federation soldiers, but that was in peacetime. "Looks good enough. Do you feel the handle?"

Hackett flexed a mechanical arm. "Yes, it's leathery. I think." He replied.

"Then you should hold the handle to release that arm's armament, like I told you. Pull it to activate it." Shepard advised.

The lieutenant did what he's told. His armor's hand whirred and purred as it folded and slid into its lethal form – a rotary heavy plasma cannon.

"Shut up and take my money…" Hendricks said, completely awestruck.

Hackett's mouth formed into an impressed grin when the weapon took shape. He held the activation handle, causing the cannon's rotary barrels to spin. "Wow. I wonder what's on the other hand." With that said, he held up his left gauntlet and pulled the handle.

Instead of something spectacular to behold, the gauntlet's metal hand simply balled itself into a fist before a corona of electrical energies enveloped it. "Well, it's better than nothing, I guess."

"Colonels Shepard and Thierfelder, please report to the nearest insertion airlock," Admiral Sandusky abruptly called over the intercom. "Bring Raven squad as well. You'll be in charge of them. Oh, and if they ask about us, tell them. The director's given the thumbs-up sixteen minutes ago. Sandusky out."

"And just in time too." Karlotte repowered the last of her armor's inactive systems. "Come on, Jon, Raven. Time for an Iconoclast crash course."

Shepard spared Karlotte a worried look behind his faceplate. "Are you sure you want to do this? The risks are higher on this assignment, as you might've noticed."

Karlotte huffed. "Gah, let's not talk about this right now. I promise, after this one, I'll tell the director. Then, he'd most likely take me out of active duty. Satisfied?"

"No," Shepard admitted, shaking his helmeted head. "But it would do. Just take it easy, alright?"

"Don't worry about me. I'm more than capable of defending myself. Let's move." The two colonels began to trudge forwards to their designated area.

"Wait, wait, wait," Hendricks frantically said, holding his arms up and halting the two colonels on their tracks. "What did your admiral say about us asking something about _them_?"

"Heh," Shepard paused to turn around, looking at all of Raven squad.

"I'm sure at least one person here knows about a certain conspiracy theory circulating around the Federation – the extranet most prominently. A certain conspiracy theory about a paramilitary organization suited to dealing with extraterrestrial threats: XCOM. Well, you're all inside an XCOM ship, and you're looking at XCOM agents. The conspiracies are true."

Hendricks, along with the rest of Raven squad, practically had their jaws on the floor. It was several seconds before the private regained his composure. "I knew it! It was goddamn true, and I knew it!" He enthusiastically proclaimed.

"Hey, take it easy." Karlotte mock chided, "Save some of that cheer when we get back from the fight – alive and well."

…

**_HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0930 hours_**

**_Admiral Galvocius _**

"Sir," Corporal Avitus called, looking at Galvocius with clear enthusiastic eagerness written in his eyes, but his voice remained calm and stable, like a soldier addressing a commander. "I'm leaving this afternoon. My superiors have an assignment cooked up for the fleet I'm detailed to."

"That's great." Galvocius said, but he never left his place at his desk. "What are you being assigned as a job, then?" The admiral asked. "A crewman? A deckhand? Part of the security detail?"

"No, sir. They told me that I'm scheduled to replace one of the marines that couldn't make it. I'll be part of a squad that's supposed to be down at the planetary invasion part - Carmine squad, I'm told."

The admiral finally stood up from his seat, to face Avitus. He had to look up, as the corporal is significantly taller and broader than him.

"And I'm guessing that this is your first live experience with hostile targets, not holographic dummies?"

"Yes, sir." Avitus replied, still maintaining his dour façade. "We're going to be facing an as-of-yet unknown alien species. They tried to activate a primary relay, and now, my superiors want them pacified. It shouldn't be that hard. They're primitives, most likely."

"Right you are." The admiral nodded. "Keep that mentality in mind, and you should be home faster than you know it."

Avitus gave a faint smile. "Yes… father."

Suddenly, Avitus' face contorted into a pained, lifeless look as his eyes inexplicably swelled up before bursting with blood. His once pristinely maintained armor was now splattered in blood and his leggings and greaves are now caked with dust and grime. The dog-tags that he once had always hung on his neck now looked torn off, and worst of all, there was a gaping, bloody hole on his chest, exposing his innards, which looked very badly burnt.

Galvocius reeled back, surprised at what had just transpired before his eyes. "Avitus! What's happening to—"

There are no words to describe the admiral's horror when his son's mouth opened to speak. His breath smelled of death and fire, and yet strangely, it felt colder than frost.

"Father... they _killed_ me."

…

The turian admiral slowly opened his eyes. He was face down on the floor, still-burning fires are faintly visible on the edges of his vision, and the dim outlines of his crew could be seen scurrying around, their hoarse shouts too muffled to be heard clearly.

Suddenly, he felt hands grasping his shoulders, trying to pick him up. Galvocius angrily shoved them off. "I'm fine, dammit." He picked himself up and dusted off his uniform. "Status report."

"Sir, our engines have been blasted off, our main gun is too heavily damaged to function, fires are scattered all over the decks and crew casualties are more than 37%!" The crewman reported. Behind him was Galvocius' executive officer's burning corpse. "What do we do, sir?!"

"Contain these fires and tell the crew to initiate field repairs, officer. If they're able, tell the gunnery crew to get the main gun working. Are the comms still online?" The admiral asked. "I need to coordinate the fleet."

"Yes, sir! The comm relay remained relatively untouched by the enemy stealth craft." The crewman responded.

"Good enough. And get the escape pods ready." Galvocius added, to the crewman's surprise. "Our engines are blasted off, we're dead in the water. If one of the alien projectiles manages to hit us one more time, this damned fleet will be leaderless." With that said, the admiral immediately ran off to the communications console.

"Jarrakus Mondranor, this is Admiral Tresdin speaking!" He broadcasted over fleetcomm. "The enemy ships are trying for a flanking maneuver. I want every available frigate to cover the western flank; cruisers, form a line and keep the enemy vessels back. _Blessed of the Titans, _how badly are you damaged?"

There was no response but unnerving static from the _Blessed_. One of the cruisers responded, "The _Blessed_'s gone, sir! She was used as a shield by the enemy stealth craft. All hands on board are lost, for all we know!"

The admiral sighed. Things are not looking up for the turians. "Fine. _Dominatus_ are you still with us?"

"Aye, sir! We were lucky enough to remain undamaged." _Dominatus'_ captain responded. "What would you have us do?"

"As you could guess, my ship is dead in the water. I've no use for such a thing. In a few minutes, I'll have all of my surviving crew in escape pods. I want you to retrieve our pods, and once you do, I'm assuming command of your ship."

"Very good… sir." The captain replied, obviously disheartened at how he was being relieved of command. "We'll be ready once you're in the pods. Tyranulox out."

"Right. For now, have a fighter screen just in the vicinity of the _Lamentations_ to keep out any unwanted guests." The admiral ordered. "Let's hope they're enough."

_..._

**_Space, en-route to the HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0940 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard – in charge of Forlorn Hope breaching group_**

"Look alive! Enemy fighters inbound!" Steiner shouted, bringing the team's attention to the threat. Several wings of turian fighters were heading right for them in a spearhead pattern, but it was clear that they haven't detected the purge trooper team yet. "They're gonna crash into us!"

"Keep moving, don't stop for anything!" Shepard responded over the comms. "Use your soar packs' boosts, for all their worth!"

Just as Shepard stopped talking, the fighter screen finally reached the squad. The breaching team carefully tried to maneuver out of the enemy fighters' paths as they tried to make their way to the enemy dreadnought discretely. It was like trying to dodge giant rocks in an overcrowded asteroid field, but with the added danger of being shot down by armed spacecraft.

Of course, being unidentified flying objects in the vicinity of an enemy aircraft, it wasn't long before the turian fighters began to take defensive actions to defend their dreadnought. Shepard and his team fought back, but as could be expected from six soldiers trying to hold their ground against an entire fighter screen, results were ugly for the six soldiers. Hendricks couldn't live to make it back to safety, as he was singled out by the turians – his armor did little to help him as several hundred fighters all unloaded their fury upon him simultaneously. He was literally blown to bloody chunks when the mass accelerated rounds did their course on him.

"Jesus, Hendricks is down!" Wernher reported over the comms.

"Don't look back, dammit!" Shepard angrily barked, in between firing bursts of energy from his gauntlet-mounted plasma cannon. "I'll hold them off! Get to the ship!"

Raven squad did what they're told with relatively little resistance, but Shepard had to put some extra effort into making Karlotte obey him. Still, she followed his orders.

The fighters, recognizing Shepard's move, tried to ignore him and focus on Raven squad. Still, the colonel's experience and skill with an Iconoclast's soar pack kept him on even ground with the enemy fighters. They kept trying to keep him separated from his comrades somehow, but he solved every puzzle the turians threw at him, keeping himself between the enemy and his team.

From their actions, Shepard deduced that the enemy fighters weren't meant for offense, but purely for defensive operations to ensure the safety of their main ships. The enemy fighters seemed ill trained, too. They repeatedly kept making mistakes that no human pilot would do with frequent regularity, and ignored vital openings that could've put themselves one step ahead of Shepard.

They also seemed afraid of death. They knew that since plasma ignored shields, one successful shot from the colonel's plasma cannon meant death, so they never bothered with making any bold moves to dislodge the colonel – a fact that he utilized to his advantage.

He went less defense-oriented and went on the offensive to play himself as more powerful than he really was. Whenever the enemy fighters tried to get in close, he would activate his thrusters to meet the alien craft head on – as one bold enemy fighter squadron found out: they, apparently forgetting about their original targets to go for Shepard himself, split off of their formation to try and deal with the colonel.

Shepard crashed into the first enemy fighter's cockpit, startling the alien pilot inside it. The colonel immediately pried off the canopy and exposed the alien to the void. The alien tried to put something over his face, but Shepard wouldn't let him. He grabbed hold of the alien's seatbelt, and ripped it off before throwing him out of his seat, into space.

He quickly moved on to the other enemy fighters, activating the magnetic locks on his armored boots to secure his footing on the alien craft he was standing on, giving him an optimal firing position. To Shepard, the alien craft were perfectly lined up to be shot in quick succession, as their heavily defensive formation necessitated close grouping. He immediately capitalized on this to cull off some of the enemy's numbers. Bewildered alien pilots, confused at the sudden turn of events as their comrades exploded right next to them, broke formation to try and get a good firing solution at the humanoid form standing over one of their own.

Realizing that the situation is about to turn on him, Shepard deactivated the locks on his boots and sped away, right before the craft he was standing on was ribboned to pieces by friendly fire.

"Shepard, we're standing right on top of a bulkhead." Hackett's voice interrupted. The sounds of whirring machinery and plasma discharges were intermingled with his voice. "We're trying to hold them off of us, but they keep coming."

"Hold on, I'm almost there!" Shepard responded. "Can you open the bulkhead to get inside?"

"I'm trying to!" Hackett shouted, and the loud thudding sounds of an Iconoclast gauntlet striking a bulkhead was heard over the comms. "This'll take too long!"

Shepard cut comms. He's heard enough. When he finally reached his team, they were standing on the underside of the dreadnought with magnetic boots, already in the process of being swarmed. Some of the enemy fighters appeared to have managed to go around him to get to his men.

Drawing his gauntlet-mounted hullsaw, he immediately went to work on the dreadnought's bulkhead. Since the hullsaw's blades are too slow to register on the dreadnought's kinetic barriers, it had no trouble tearing through the vessel's thin armored plating.

Soon a man-sized hole was made on the bulkhead. Small objects began to get sucked out of the ship before a transparent, white-hued kinetic airlock prevented further objects from being sucked out. Shepard peered through the hole he made and saw the ship's cargo hold.

"Alright! Everybody get inside the ship, on the double!" Shepard ordered, tapping Hackett's shoulder to get his attention. "Come on, you're gonna get left behind! Move, move!"

…

**_HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0940 hours_**

**_Admiral Galvocius_**

"The fighters have failed to stop the enemy boarders, admiral! They're inside the ship, down here at the cargo hold! I repeat: they inside the—gah!" The soldier was cut off. A disturbing blistering sound could be heard after he was interrupted.

"Damn it all!" Galvocius slammed the comms console. "I want every marine on this ship to get their asses on the cargo hold this instant! Push the bastards OUT OF MY SHIP!"

"Sir," A tech officer sheepishly interrupted. "More of these boarders are coming at us in every direction. Our fighters are tasked to capacity!"

"Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Call the damned cruisers to get them out of our tail!" The admiral ordered.

…

**_Cargo Hold – HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 0940 hours_**

**_Staff Sergeant Katharine Steiner – second-in-command of Raven squad_**

"Hostiles behind that bulkhead, to the northeast!" Shepard called out to his team of five. "Steiner, go flush them out! Wernher, cover her flanks! Hackett, give them covering fire!"

"I'm on it, colonel!" Steiner replied, before she pulled the handle on her left gauntlet. Earlier, she had guessed that it was some sort of ranged weapon, as it had a tube connected to it all the way to a rectangular container attached to her back.

She was very satisfied at what her gauntlet, and most of her forearm, transformed into. It was an oversized Damnation-pattern flamethrower; complete with a lit pilot light that burns a bright greenish-orange. Judging from the color of the fire on the pilot light, the weapon must be using Hellfire as fuel.

_Someone in XCOM _does_ know about my pyromania_! The soldier excitedly thought.

"Hellfire" was the Federation's official designation for the compound that's produced when one mixes jellied Elerium and a certain type of Meld, before exposing the results to Element Zero. Victims of Hellfire were not only burned severely, but they were also literally "removed from existence, molecule by molecule", as a Federation defense scientist said. More precisely, organic and synthetic matter would get broken down to their most basic element, leaving nothing but an easily removed blackened stain on the floor.

Lumbering over to the turians' position with Wernher watching her back, Steiner couldn't help herself but grin stupidly when she saw the results of her work. They futilely tried to claw off the Hellfire coating their bodies, screaming in agonized howls as they did. Before long, there would be nothing left of the aliens, leaving no evidence that they existed at all.

When one of the turians had the bright idea to come at Steiner from behind with a shotgun, she laughed off his futile attempts to leave a dent in her armor. Holding and pulling the handle on her right gauntlet, the sergeant rammed an ironclad fist onto the surprised turian's helmet. The results were simply overkill.

"Cargo hold, zero contacts!" Karlotte shouted, breaking the silence that followed. "Shepard, what do we do now?"

When the team regrouped, Shepard relayed his orders, "Right, we should clear a path straight to the command bridge. Remember: we're not here to take prisoners unless it's an enemy admiral or a similar high-ranking officer. Abrahamsson and Lewis' purge teams should arrive in a few minutes to assist; they'll be in charge of doing in the rest of the dreadnought. Any questions? Good, let's do this carefully, and nobody should die for the rest of the mission. Let's go."

…

**_Corridors – HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_Lieutenant Hackett_**

Hackett, using an omni-tool to hack the alien network for information, led the way for his team around the enemy dreadnought's interiors.

"Right, we should just follow the path I'm marking on your HUDs." The lieutenant suggested as he walked, his clanking footfalls in eerie synchronization with his four other comrades. More strangely, the alien security detail seemed to have disappeared just a few minutes ago.

"What're these colors all about?" Wernher asked as he tried to patch a hole in his armor with a medikit.

"The red areas are heavily defended corridors. We should avoid them if we can." Hackett explained. "The green areas are supposedly hostile-free environments. The areas marked as yellow are hostile-free too, but they're like that because there's a dangerous industrial risk in those areas."

"Really? Like the one we're walking on right now?" Shepard asked.

Hackett glanced at his omni-tool, and then did a double take. "I'm afraid so. It wasn't like that before we entered it. How could that b—"

"Forget about it. What do we need to look out for?" The colonel asked once more.

"Well, this area, in the event of an enemy boarding action, could be bathed in—" It was then that the lieutenant realized that the aliens knew they were being hacked, and had intentionally lead his team to their current position. "Jesus Christ, we need to get out of here." He powered down his omni-tool and began to look for exits.

"Why, what's going on, LT?" Steiner nervously asked.

"They're gonna wash this area with enough dust-form Element Zero to choke us to death." Hackett calmly answered. "After that, they'll vent this place with the same amount of radiation the sun provides. They knew I've been hacking their network."

…

**_Engine Room – HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_Tech Officer Lledes Novariah _**

"Admiral, the boarders are in position for us to spring the trap." Officer Lledes reported, before glancing back at the security console. "And it seems that they knew we're expecting them to be right where they are now. Should I dispose of them now?"

"Do it." Came the simple reply from Galvocius.

"Aye aye, admiral." Lledes replied. "Commencing eezo vent. Starting radiation warm-up sequence." The tech officer chuckled as the alien boarders broke into a frantic sprint when the Element Zero dust began to emerge from the air filtration system.

"I wonder how it feels like to be choked in eezo dust before being cooked inside your own armor…"

…

**_Corridors – HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_Colonel Shepard_**

"To the right, to the right!" Hackett called out from behind. Shepard obeyed, and those behind followed.

As he ran, the colonel noted that the ship suffered extreme structural damage. Some walls were knocked down, some areas of the ship had telltale green-hued plasma burns and more than a few fires were burning. It was a miracle that it was still in operation.

"Contacts, alien infantry!" Wernher shouted, and from the tone of his voice, he sounded out of breath. Shepard looked at what the soldier was pointing at and found several squads of turians waiting for them, assault rifles in hand and adorned with armored environmental suits.

"The Iconoclast isn't made to filter out toxins, dammit! Keep moving!" Shepard shouted over the comms. The turians began to shift positions, to block the team's only exits. Fortunately, the humans weren't easily dissuaded.

The colonel charged right through an alien blockade, bashing aside or blasting open crates and other barricades meant to stop him in his tracks. One of the larger turians thought he could stop Shepard with a charge of his own. It was not his brightest moment, as he soon found out. Shepard only whipped out his hullsaw and ripped the alien in two from head to groin with one vertical slice, coating his armor in blue blood. This had the added effect of ruining the turians' morale, upon seeing their former comrade so easily vanquished like that.

"Colonel, we could get out of here through the left corridor!" Hackett informed. "Take the left!"

"I'm on it!" The colonel responded. He found that like Wernher, he was going out of breath, and his vision is starting to blur. He only hoped that Karlotte is coping better than he was.

When Shepard finally reached the end of the corridor, he was only mildly discouraged when he found that it was a dead end. He fired a blast of energy from his plasma cannon before doing in the rest of the wall with his hullsaw.

The team followed the colonel out of the passage he made. They each used a moment to catch their breaths, as the area appeared devoid of any dangers.

Steiner collapsed on one of the crates. In turn, it collapsed on her weight. She was too tired to care, though. "Ah, we made it." She chuckled. "I can't believe we made it." She then noticed that there was only four of the team's original five. "Where's Wernher?"

"Dead." Karlotte responded, her usual cheer being already replaced with the appropriate seriousness the situation called for. "I read his mind, he's got a heart condition, apparently. He was already dead when the turians showed up."

Suddenly, Hackett was back up on his feet, looking ready to run again. "We've just crossed the street. We're still in the yellow zone."

"No, we're fine." Shepard responded, already composed. "The Iconoclast could withstand radiation. We just need to worry about turian skirmishers now."

…

**_Command Bridge - HWS Lamentations of the Vanquished_**

**_July 06th, 2157 - 1000 hours_**

**_Admiral Galvocius_**

That was it. The alien boarders have broken through most of Galvocius' defenses, and are now in the process of decimating the last of the guards that Galvocius had posted outside the command bridge, with orders to defend their position to the death. The admiral already had armed the command staff with assault rifles to defend themselves with, but the chances of being victorious seemed remote, not only for the _Lamentation_'s crew, but for the whole turian fleet.

Outside the dreadnought, the two forces are in stalemate. The aliens have superior technology, but they relied on them too much, and their tactics and strategies were quite lacking. It appears that their forces were not experienced with protracted spaceborne engagements like the turian forces do, and with their fleet admiral's death or capture, one of the main advantages the turian forces have would be taken away from them, leaving them free to be defeated once more.

There is only one way to resolve this situation without much loss to the turian fleet, Galvocius thought.

Suddenly, heavy footfalls and sporadic bouts of gunfire resounded outside the reinforced steel doors to the command bridge. This continued for several minutes before falling silent. Blue fluids began to leak from outside, streaming into the command bridge. Just as sudden as the turn of events started, an automated saw-like implement swiftly tore the doors open, before a giant metal hand pried them aside, revealing the alien boarders.

Standing over seven feet tall in their bulky envirosuits, the alien soldiers were absolutely _enormous_. Their faces were hidden beneath tubed, rebreathered, dour-faced helmets, with perfectly round, reddish-orange eye-sockets, making the soldiers appear as if they were perpetually staring at their enemies.

Before the doors were even completely out of the way of the aliens' path, the floor to the only other exit in the command bridge gave away in a green explosion. Seconds later, more of the aliens came crawling out of the floor like demons straight out of the Seven Hells, their weapons ready to fire.

With the turian command staff completely surrounded with no where else to go, the aliens' metal hands suddenly morphed into a variety of different weapons. They each spared their comrades a cursory look before taking aim, onto the turian crew.

Galvocius, before anything can break out between the two sides, decided to take action.

"Everyone, put your guns down." He ordered to his crew, to their confusion. Most did not immediately follow, so he elaborated. "We're surrendering."

The security staff, ingrained to follow whatever order that was issued to them by their commanding officers without question, obeyed immediately. The rest of the turian crew followed gradually.

As a response, the aliens seemed to hesitate. They looked at one another again, as if mentally asking each other on what to do. Several seconds later, one of them, the leader, by the looks of his armor, spoke up. Galvocius was expecting a wave of indecipherable alien ramblings, so he was genuinely surprised when the alien leader spoke in comprehensible and unaccented, yet odd-sounding Vextrenese.

"Put your hands behind your heads and kneel down." He gruffly ordered, his grating voice enough to intimidate some of the crew to obey immediately. "The decision is not ours to make, so I'll take a moment to contact my superiors. Though I must warn you, we came here to kill every last one of your kind. Don't think your chances of surviving are high."

The crew looked at their superior. Galvocius nodded and did what he's told. His crew reluctantly did the same.

"Are you an admiral, a high-ranking officer?" The alien leader then asked, after a few seconds of talking through his comms.

"I'm an admiral, yes." Galvocius responded. He felt strange talking to an alien in his own language. They must've made their own translators, which is impressive, he thought. "The lowest ranking man in this bridge is a lieutenant. There he is." He gestured at one of the younger tech officers.

Suddenly, the alien leader whipped out his saw, activated it and separated the lieutenant's head from his shoulders, to the turians' shock and horror.

"What the hell are you doing?!" The admiral half-shouted, trying not to go overboard and inadvertently triggering the alien's blood rage. "This was his first tour!"

"My superior told me that we won't be taking captives ranked lieutenant and below." The alien leader emotionlessly informed. "I'm sorry, but like I've told you, it's not my decision to make. If it's any consolation, the rest of you are fine. You're all our prisoners now."

"Are you sure the director told you that, sir?" One of the aliens spoke up, still keeping his weapon trained at the captive turians. "I think we should just kill them now. They're probably planning to cross us anyway."

"Stand down, Abrahamsson." The alien leader ordered. "The director wants to speak with one of the alien officers without killing him. I don't like it, but orders are orders."

"Yes, sir." The other alien complied in reluctance, lowering his guns.

Galvocius, while finding the similarity between his species and these aliens quite comforting, decided to speak up to the leader. "Excuse me, I need a name from you."

"It's Shepard." He responded forthrightly.

"Indeed. _General_ Shepard, I take it?"

The aliens then took turns to laugh, with some of the turian crew joining in nervously. The alien leader himself was nonplussed. "I'm just a colonel, I'm afraid."

Galvocius nodded. "Right. Well, colonel, as you could've probably guessed, I'm in charge of this invasion fleet. As the man in charge of coordinating the shipmasters, with me gone, they'll be decimated by your race's forces. A whole lot of my men would be killed, but they won't die so easily. They'll take some of your own men down with them, and you can mark my words as I speak: they're at their best when backed to a corner. It'll be like fighting double the force you've encountered previously. Your victory will be a short-lived, pyrrhic one." The admiral stated, full of pride, but mindful of his words.

"As a request, to avoid further casualties to both our forces, I'd like to order them to make a full retreat... if you'd allow me."

"No, out of the question." The earlier insubordinate alien immediately answered. "Your kind needs to pay for its crimes. We're already stretching our generosity thin with your-"

"You may." Colonel Shepard angrily cut off his subordinate. "We only wanted them out of here, _senior field agent_." He accentuated the soldier's rank menacingly, as if he was threatening to demote him. "The admiral's offering to stop further lives from being snuffed out. I'd say it's a good deal, even if most of them would live to fight another day."_  
_

Galvocius nodded and stood up from his kneeling position. "Thank you, colonel. I'm glad your race isn't as mindlessly violent as I've been told."

* * *

**TRITON CLUSTER/OLYMPUS SYSTEM/DREKPLAATS**

**_Gordian Station – Command Bridge - In orbit of Drekplaats_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 1100 hours_**

**_Vice Admiral Eranias Hellutes – in charge of Fort Progeny's spaceborne defenders_**

"Twenty unidentified contacts are about to exit the Triton Relay, admiral." Tech officer Zimideus reported.

Admiral Eranias narrowed his eyes into slits. "How many times have you hailed them?"

"Seven, sir." The tech officer answered. "That's strange… their profile signatures don't match any of our ships…" He observed, right before realizing what's about to happen. "Sir! These ships aren't turian! They're—"

The unidentified contacts revealed themselves to be a small flotilla of alien ships, matching the design aesthetic of the ships that apparently defeated Admiral Nandrakan's first contact fleet.

"Shit, it's the 314s! How the hell did they find us?!" Zimideus disbelievingly asked, his talons typing across his console frantically.

Eranias wasn't there to answer him, though. The admiral is already over at the communications console, preparing to coordinate his forces for a hard-pressed skirmish if the alien ships are on orders to attack, or for a prodding volley in case that they were merely scouts, about to report the turians' presence in the Triton Cluster.

However, instead of turning tail and speeding away, the vastly outnumbered alien forces approached the Gordian, with seeming hostile intent. Eranias wasn't about to underestimate his foe, however. He flashed a predatory turian grin as he prepared and arranged his fleet into position as if he was facing a vastly numerous adversary, not a token force of 20 ships. The alien ships, by the combined might of Admiral Eranias' two hundred and fifty ships of varying types and specializations, would not stand any sort of chance at winning, Eranias thought.

When the enemy ships hovered close enough to the turian forces, Zimideus couldn't help but open his mouth in confusion before quickly closing it shut to report to his admiral. "Sir, these ships are _strange_. There's no frigates, cruisers, dreadnoughts or anything we know. There's just one massive, 3-kilometer long ship supported by nineteen other bulb-like ships. The big one doesn't even have a main battery, it's unarmed... and the little ones are unarmed too, but they have tube-like protrusions underneath them."

Eranias slowly nodded, as he comprehended what his tech officer said. "Then _what_ can they do?"

Zimideus made a turian frown before shaking his head. "I've got no idea, sir. However, I did a scan on the prime alien ship, and found that it's rife with organic signatures, about ten thousand, _at the very least_. Whatever that ship's supposed to be, it has _a lot _of enemy personnel inside it."

Eranias made a quick decision. If the prime alien ship had that many personnel manning it, it surely must be extremely important to the alien cause. Plus, the whole alien flotilla is unarmed, making it a crucial target for Eranias' fleet. The admiral commanded half of his fleet to proceed with the attack, painting the prime ship as a priority target. All in all, Eranias felt confident about his ordeal. He instructed his forces to provide no quarter; this is retribution for the lives lost because of Admiral Nandrakan's incompetence.

When the turian vanguard ships are close enough the lead alien ship did not unleash a barrage of projectiles in retaliation, as was expected. It did, however, unleash something akin to an angry legion of hornets. Alien fighters in their tens of thousands emerged from two giant airlocks on the sides of the alien ship, placed themselves into a spearhead-shaped formation before quickly zeroing in on the surprised turians.

_What?!_ Eranias was dumbfounded when he saw the events transpiring before his forces. _Who the hell uses _fighters_ as their main form of attack? Spirits, this is going to be way too easy. And to think that Nandrakan's fleet had _lost _to this army of primitives! _

"Launch counter-fighters!" The admiral ordered in retaliation to the aliens' actions. "Today, the Hierarchy's honor will be redeemed!"

…

**_Dietrich Fighter Craft "Xenokiller" – in attack route with turian vessels_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 1100 hours_**

**_Flight Lieutenant Kara MacPherson, callsigned "Zulu 42" – second-in-command of Zulu squadron_**

"Alpha Two-Three, this is Zulu Four-Two, radio check, over." Zulu 12 voiced through her comm. Zulu squadron has been tasked with spearheading the assault on the alien forces guarding Drekplaats from orbit.

"Zulu Four-Two, this is Alpha Two-Three. I'm reading you five-by-five, over." Alpha 23 responded, much to Zulu 42's relief. Bad communication can lead to disastrous consequences at this scenario.

"Alpha Two-Three, received, out." Zulu 42 pinged her squadron leader. "Zulu Six-One, do you read me? I've got a visual on your craft on my three o'clock, you want my group to form up on your six?"

It took a few seconds for Zulu 61 to respond with, "Solid copy, Four-Two. Negative on that, hold your positions. Keep your drones posted on each of your flanks. Try to maintain spacing, we're about to come in contact with x-rays."

"Wilco, Six-One." 42 replied, somewhat disappointed. "The rest of you, fall in on my tail. Keep your objectives in sight, and this'd be over quickly. With luck, we should get this done with acceptable losses."

A chorus of enthusiastic affirmatives from the human pilots and a sequence of beeps from the synthetic drone fighters rang throughout squadroncomm.

The XCOM fighter craft quickly closed the distance between themselves and the approaching alien vessels. For some reason, despite being outnumbered seven-to-one, the turian fighter screen did not fall back. They were like foolhardy prey jumping head-on into the jaws of a predator, 42 thought. The fighter pilot presumed that the reason for this bold action must be because the aliens have superior fighter craft technologies, or that they have better training.

When the two sides collided, however, 42 found herself glad to be grossly mistaken. The turian fighter screen was utterly demolished when the opposing forces met. The only technological advantage they appeared to possess is their superior maneuverability, but human vessels trumped every other conceivable aspect by several leagues. The first turian fighter wave was completely eradicated after firing a single, pitiful volley of mass-accelerated projectiles, their pilots probably in the state of shock just before their fiery deaths at the hands of human plasma cannons.

The second turian wave didn't fare much better. They were expecting their foes to be reloading their main armaments after the first clash, but it seemed that they possessed a secondary weapon, which was something completely unheard of. About a quarter of the turian fighter screen found itself completely immobilized after EMP blasts rendered their vessels dead in the water, their pilots doomed to be quickly finished off by proper weapons, or to die by suffocation and exposure when their craft's life support systems failed on them.

Mere forty seconds have passed, and the turian fighter screen was reduced to a shadow of its former self, with the humans only suffering relatively minor losses, as their synthetic comrades took the brunt of the turians' assault. The rest of the turian fleet didn't seem to notice this, 42 observed. They remained stationary, as if they were expecting their fighters to come out on top.

_Heh, how wrong these bastards are._

…

**_Gordian Station – In orbit of Drekplaats_**

**_Admiral Eranias_**

"Status report, group captain." Eranias pinged the leader of his fleet's fighter screen, but he won't respond. "Captain, what's happening out there? Are the 314 fighters neutralized yet?"

"Sir!" Zimideus shouted. "Look out the window, there's something you need to see!"

With an irritated groan, the general turned his head to Gordian Station's reinforced windows. He didn't have it in him to act shocked at his impeding doom. The alien fighters have outright destroyed his fighter screen, and now, alien bombers were zooming right for his position.

The admiral turned to his men. He was about to make a statement, but he didn't bother opening his mouth once he saw his fellow turians trying to fearfully scurry for cover in a bid to salvage their lives.

Eranias didn't feel the sting when his station was engulfed in a bright blue light. Everything in his vision flooded white for several seconds, before he found himself on the floor, still on the station and very much alive. The admiral stood up and found out that Gordian Station had just been disabled by an EMP blast.

…

**_Dietrich Fighter Craft "The Judgement of the Righteous" – diverting attack course to other turian vessels_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 1100 hours_**

**_Group Captain Reginald Taggart, designated "Zulu 61" – in command of Zulu squadron_**

"Enemy command station is out of commission!" 61 proudly declared as his fighter craft sped away from the disabled space station. "All squadrons, now's our chance. Prioritize the rest of the turian fleet; they're disorganized and leaderless!"

61 fired a burst from his fighter's plasma cannons, obliterating a confused enemy fighter. Opening up a comm to Detachment Y:74's commander, 61 said, "Blue Crown, this is Zulu Six-One, we've disabled the enemy command station. I say again: enemy command station down, ready for purge trooper insertion. How copy, over?"

"Loud and clear, Six-One." A dry, grating voice responded. "Be advised, the order to prioritize using EMP cannons over your Canaries has just been rescinded. Lethal force is much more preferred now. This is Blue Crown, over and out."

61 bared his teeth in a primal grin behind the tubed mask that covered his mouth. Looks like this battle's going to turn out a lot easier now.

With their command station effectively severed from them, the alien cruiser began to reposition to cover their now exposed flank. From the garbled communications streaming from their comms, they remained mostly calm and collected, even if they were completely shocked at how the battle turned out. Unfortunately for them, 61 is planning to change that.

"All fighters, target the alien command bridges. Remove their commanders from play." He ordered just after reducing an alien bomber into a derelict piece of scrap metal.

The result was horrifying, if the humans were put into the aliens' shoes. The human fighters dropped on their prey like a predatory bird swooping after defenceless mice. GARDIAN anti-fighter batteries fought back, but the sheer amount of human fighter craft made the laser batteries overheat, their auto-targeting systems tasked to capacity. Plus, the Ilyushinite alloy plating the fighters were outfitted in did wonders for the humans; often saving fighters and bombers that would've otherwise been lost. Within minutes, most of the alien ships were all missing the upper portions of their vessels, resulting in an even more disorganized alien fleet, their forces effectively rendered headless. Their comms are now filled with appropriate panicky reports, replacing the earlier professional tone of the reports.

Still, with the overwhelming amount of firepower the humans have brought, it wasn't enough to kill every last turian. At least half a dozen of them escaped, much to 61's consternation. With barely contained anger, he broadcasted,

"All podbearers, it should now be safer for you to begin the landborne invasion. Watch for enemy stragglers, there should still be a few."

…

**_Fort Progeny Military Research Installation – Sigma Block – Drekplaats_**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 1200 hours_**

**_Major General Varro Krodimus – Fort Progeny's highest ranking officer_**

General Varro, through his "outstanding propensity for commanding units to stand guard in one spot for indefinite amounts of time", as described by his superiors in the Hierarchy, was put in charge of the security forces guarding the turian military installation in Drekplaats. Most turians preferred to be put in charge of units that were most likely to see combat, but for some reason, Varro was always assigned to posts that are about as lively as a graveyard at night.

Sure, life in Fort Progeny could be the dullest one known to turiankind, but Varro compensates by being extremely proficient at what he was assigned to do. It was typical for places he was posted to guard to not have any significant events during the duration of his stay, with only the occasional troublemaker serving as the source of his post's problems.

As a result of this inactivity, Varro had taken to being quite sluggish, but unstoppable and unrelenting when called for, as typical for a turian general of high rank like him.

That was a few days ago. Now, Varro's mind is practically delirious with paranoia. News from Palaven about some extremely dangerous new alien race apparently sending the entirety of the Draius Ferlodinus Legion and some elements of other legions packing back to Palaven had affected the general severely. He hasn't eaten anything since the day before, and sleep seemed to be impossible for him to achieve.

Now, the 314s were knocking on his door. They had just made short work of Admiral Eranias' fleet, and are now most likely in the process of making a landborne invasion of Drekplaats. The general's worst nightmare was quite literally being made manifest.

With unabashed terror, Varro watched the feed through the cameras his men installed around Fort Progeny's perimeter. Giant metallic objects seemed to descend from the sky in fireballs, alongside with what's clearly wreckage from Admiral Eranias' ruined spaceborne defenders.

…

**_XPB Yangtze – currently inserting troops into Drekplaats. _**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 1100 hours_**

**_Master Operator Andrej Aleksandrov, callsigned "Leonidas" – Hellstrider pilot_**

"Hellstrider systems online. Designation: Poseidon. All systems nominal. Weapon systems: primed and ready. Mission: the liberation of Drekplaats, and the acquisition of functional alien technology."

Aleksandrov's hands were shaking on his Hellstrider's console. Not out of fear, because he wasn't the sort to tremble when faced with ant-sized opponents while inside a giant mectopod. He was trembling out of joy and excitement. He had trained all his life for this moment, and the moment appears to have come.

The floor underneath the mectopod hangar slid to the side, revealing the greenery that was Drekplaats below Aleksandrov's mech. Aleksandrov was supposed to be rapidly dropped from orbit for quick deployment, along with several others of his comrades for the extent of the invasion. With the element zero drive core sustaining the mech, the only damage it will sustain after being launched into the ground from orbit would be minimal, at worst.

"Launching mectopod one."

With a clang and a hiss, the Hellstrider in front of Aleksandrov's own was detached from the robotic claw holding it. It drifted away from its ship before it activated its leg thrusters, sending it aflame as it plummeted down into Drekplaat's surface.

"Launching drop pod one."

The gigantic pod containing at least a hundred agents was propelled violently into Drekplaat's surface. Unlike the regular disposable drop pods, the pods launched from podbearer ships were designed to function as command centers and armories.

"Launching mectopod two."

Aleksandrov strapped himself on his cockpit's seat. Seconds passed before he felt his mech's restraints being bolted off. Hastily flipping a couple of essential switches, initiating most of the Hellstrider's navigation systems and activating the element zero drive core powering his mech, Aleksandrov made his descent towards the battlefield.

As he fell, the Hellstrider buckled and wobbled. Red warning signs began to flash, and the heat inside the machine became intolerable. Thankfully, it was over in half a minute, when the Hellstrider made landfall. He landed in a grassy open plain, full of red poppy-like flowers and wooden protrusions on the ground. If it weren't for the fact that this area was currently a warzone, it would've been quite a peaceful, serene place.

Of course, with his immediate area being a battlefield, as soon as he composed his mech's bearings, his position was immediately set upon by enemy tank and small arms fire.

Quickly priming his arm-mounted fusion lance and discharging it at the closest enemy tank, Aleksandrov smirked in triumph as he watched the vehicle go up in an orange explosion brought on by his hands. The mectopod pilot pressed the advantage to advance towards a nearby tank column, trampling over alien infantry as he charged.

When he closed the distance, Aleksandrov willed his mech to tear a hovertank's turret off with its right arm's electrified claw, along with most of the tank's upper portion, exposing its interiors. The turian tank crew could not even react as they were wiped from existence by the plasma assault cannon mounted on Aleksandrov's shoulder. In desperation, the tanks began to sacrifice themselves so that some of their numbers and their infantry support could fall back to safer positions.

However, the sheer firepower that XCOM's engineers put in each individual Hellstrider and the sophisticated auto-targeting programs installed in the mechs ensured a quick, unclean end to any who opposed the pilot, and the tank column Aleksandrov had in his sights is no exception.

As the mectopod pilot reaped death all over his position, allied drop pods and MEC troopers were dropping from the sky, making craters where they smashed into. Agents wrenched open the exits to their pods before clearing their area's proximity of any hostiles with clockwork-like precision and prejudice. MEC troopers, not to be outdone, went unopposed as they plowed through the enemy defenders, often encountering enemy resistance too pathetic to be hindered in significance.

In the sky, friendly aircraft kept the skies above the XCOM agents clear, shooting down their alien counterparts, allowing the human ground forces to advance unimpeded. In short, the turian defense forces were simply not suited to deal with anything the XCOM forces have in store.

As Aleksandrov did his best to clear his area of enemy forces, a crackle of static accompanied by his commander's voice forced him to slacken his pace. "All invading forces, this is Blue Crown. Your orders are to regroup in the area I'm marking on your HUDs. Don't hesitate to kill any hostile forces you encounter on the way there. Blue Crown out."

"Enemy armored column approaching from the northwest!" Another voice shouted over the comms. "Our flank's exposed! Anyone in a position to help?"

"Hang on, I'm rolling." Aleksandrov answered, ordering his mech to lurch forwards, into the alien tank column. He wondered why the aliens even considered fighting back. Without superior numbers on their side, they might as well be shooting paintballs into the XCOM forces invading them.

…

**_Open plains – 400km to Fort Progeny _**

**_July 06__th__, 2157 – 1230 hours_**

**_Brigadier General Sir Theodore "Ted" Larsen, Great Ethereal War veteran – in charge of the human vanguard force_**

The alien officer, oblivious to the self-destruct feature of XCOM's main close-quarters firearm – the alloy cannon, lunged at General Larsen, grappling with him for his gun. He could just let the alien blow himself up, but the general would rather not lose his precious gun, Barker, in the process.

With the strength that could only be gained by having gene augs, Larsen shoved the gun in his hands into the officer's helmet, flattening the side of it while knocking it off, exposing the alien's hideous face. Still, his grip on Barker was commendable. Most people would be already unconscious after experiencing a heavy-handed blow to the head from the general. In response, the alien kicked and landed punches of his own. Larsen continued struggling for his weapon, when another turian arrived to assist his commanding officer, peppering Larsen's armored back with his assault rifle.

_I must end this quickly._ Larsen thought. With a hefty tug, the general finally wrenched his shotgun away from the alien's claws before hitting him across the head with the stock, sending him staggering back, clutching his bleeding head in agony. Utilizing the moment, Larsen pressed a stud underneath the alloy cannon. An electrified bayonet emerged from it.

The general spun around and impaled the turian behind him on his chest. The alien gasped in pain as the energy field coating the bayonet scorched his innards away. Larsen, not satisfied yet, pulled the blade away from the alien's flesh before plunging it thrice more in rapid succession before finishing him off with a single discharge of machined Ilyushinite shards from Barker in point-blank range to the helmet. There was literally nothing left of the alien's head after the brigadier general pulled the trigger, and yet, he noticed that instead of blowing off the upper portion of his opponent's torso along with his head, only the head was torn off. Larsen guessed that something must have been lessening the impact of his shots.

The alien officer made good use of his soldier's sacrifice, however. Picking up a trio of grenades from a nearby fallen XCOM agent, the turian unpinned and threw two of the explosives to Larsen, who was just in the process of reloading his shotgun.

Being suited in full Aufseher armor, the general was only knocked off his feet when a plasma grenade detonated right under his feet, with only a few bruises and burns as testament to his negligence. He quickly righted himself and tried to reach for his gun, but it wasn't on his person anymore. He tried to search for it, but a thick cloud of white smoke blocked his view. Keeping calm, he slowly reached for his knife as he activated his helmet's built-in thermal optics.

Just as the world around Larsen turned into a wide range of colors, another grenade came rolling underneath him once more. Larsen prepared to move out of his position, but suddenly, a bright yellow-orange signature charged him from the front, nearly toppling him over when it slammed into him, despite him being much taller and broader than his opponent. Before he could retaliate, the grenade had already detonated.

The grenade turned out to be a flash grenade, fortunately. However, since Larsen had his thermal optics on, the grenade's effect on his vision was amplified tremendously. He found himself on his knees, screaming in pain and clawing away at his helmet's eye sockets. The alien, having his back turned away from the explosion, was only deafened by the blast.

_Impressive,_ Larsen thought, even in his pained state. These aliens have a good grasp of tactics – better than mutons and sectoids, even.

The alien officer, exploiting his success, drew his combat knife and made his move to finish off the general. He quickly jammed the blade into the side of Larsen's faceplate before forcefully prying it off, revealing an old soldier's face. The alien let out a pleased growling sound when he finally found a spot where he could slide his knife into.

However, being in the business of war for more than a hundred years made Larsen virtually unkillable. His body might be weathered, but his mind housed a veritable ocean of experience. It was probably several decades ago when he learned to fight without the aid of his eyes, relying only on his other senses.

Just as the blade that would've ended his life began its approach, Larsen's head was already out of the way. The general quickly grabbed hold of the surprised alien's leg and _pulled_, sweeping him off his feet.

"Agh, you bastard!" The alien said; followed by a curse Larsen couldn't decipher with his brand-new Vextrenese translators. He righted himself relatively quickly when he realized that his adversary might not be as helpless as he thought.

Picking himself up, Larsen drew his own knife, putting on the old "Counter-berserker" stance. "Come, then. Show me what you've got, son."

The alien nearly dropped his weapon when he heard words – _coherent_ words, come out of his enemy. "What? You could—"

The alien's reaction was just what Larsen was aiming for. His words died in his mouth when the general charged him. The alien barely managed to save himself by quickly locking his knife to Larsen's, preventing a blow that should've slashed his throat open. The general then immediately countered by sliding his blade away from the lock, causing the turian to sever one of his mandibles by accident with his own knife. Larsen then followed up his attacks by sheathing his knife into the reeling turian's torso before landing a swift gauntleted punch to the side of his head, concussing him.

As the electrified knife did its work on the concussed turian's flesh, Larsen tried to force him into a chokehold. The alien officer tried to squirm out of Larsen's grasp, but he was too strong. With his victim firmly immobilized in his armored arms, the general turned and forced him to see the devastation that is being wrought upon kind.

Berserker squads were having a bit too much fun tearing out their victims' innards into the grassy field. XCOM agents were advancing towards the enemy fort without much trouble, wiping out squads of turians in their way. Psi-troopers pressed forwards across the battlefield in menacing strides, sowing terror and destruction to their foes, while providing protection and encouragement to their allies. Aug troopers, specializing in fields of their own choosing, performed feats that go beyond what an ordinary human being could do, often to the bafflement and fear of the turians. MEC troopers did what they always did, providing heavy infantry support and limited artillery support with their shoulder-mounted artillery pieces. Last but not least, Hellstrider mechs, standing at over forty feet tall, lumbered forwards, indiscriminately eliminating the pitiful turian opposition pitted against them.

The turian whimpered in Larsen's grip in such a way that he almost pitied his vanquished foe. Almost.

The general twisted his grip. With an almost inaudible crunch, the turian went limp. Larsen discarded the corpse on his hands in a nonchalant way, inelegantly piling it on top of other alien corpses. He then realized that those corpses also included most of the task force he tried to personally lead to the alien fort.

He sighed, yet he shouldn't. _This is just a normal part of every single war. _He reasoned. _I thought I'm already used to this. _

Reaching for the radio attached to the collar of his armor, Larsen commed for another squad he took with him. They were fortunate to be much further up the turian lines, away from most of the fighting. "Omen team, this is Checkmate Actual. Most of my men are dead; so I think it's up to you now, so don't wait for the rest of us. Are you ready to proceed?"

"We're ready, sir." Omen Leader reported. "We're just outside the fort's perimeter. The guards are currently disorganized, now's the best time if you want us to move in."

"Very well. Make sure to keep in radio contact." Larsen responded. "We don't want them destroying whatever useful tech they're hiding in there. You've got translators, so if word gets around that the aliens are ordering a purge of any useful tech to prevent capture, I need you to ensure that the order doesn't get carried out. Checkmate out."

_..._

**_XWS Festus - Tranquil-class hunter-killer carrier_**

**_July 06th, 2157 - 1300 hours_**

**_Field Marshal Klaus Trakas, designation "Blue Crown"_**

"It's a killzone out there, sir." Captain Petrovich informed.

"Explain." Field Marshal Trakas plainly asked the captain.

"I've sent two squads to scout the area out, but they were cut down before the one-minute mark. The turians have fixed MG emplacements on the other side, they have tanks for heavy armor support, and what's worse, they've got the area locked down with constant artillery barrages. Anyone we send beyond our area is a dead man, I'm afraid."

Trakas knew that it was times like this that rushing heedlessly into the fight won't do, even with superior weapons technology. "Hm. Patch me the through to Checkmate, captain."

"Roger, sir. I'll get him for you." The captain stepped off the holoplatform.

Seconds later, the armored form of the brigadier general replaced the captain. Strange, Trakas thought. His eyes were bandaged over, with blood trailing out of the edges, staining the bandage's white with red. "These aliens are smarter than we thought, sir." Was his sole explanation.

"Never mind that, general. What's the situation down there?"

"It'll be over quickly, sir. The turians are heavily bunkered down their side of No Man's Land, but I've got a solution just for that." The general replied.

"And what's that, could you tell me?" Trakas asked, raising a brow.

"I'll tell you, sir, but I think you should just see the results for yourself. I've already got several infiltrators inside the alien installation, and I'm trying to coordinate the scouting teams I've sent out to investigate the enemy front lines," Larsen straightforwardly told his superior. "I promise you, the turians won't hold for long. Their fortress will be under XCOM's banners, and soon, their secrets will be ours to take. This planet _will_ be ours, sir."

...

**_20km to Fort Progeny, No Man's Land, human side - Drekplaats_**

**_July 06th, 2157 - 1400 hours_**

**_Private Arkady Czarniak - Albatross squad member_**

As the XCOM forces eventually bludgeoned their way close to the enemy fort, they have encountered extreme resistance from pre-made alien static defenses, including a trench that stretched the entirety of the only path towards the alien-held installation. On the turian side of things, it appears that they've bunkered up when they received word that their spaceborne defense has been knocked down. Machine-guns lined almost every inch of the enemy trench, anti-armor turrets and enemy hovertanks are almost as numerous as the infantry, and anti-air batteries kept the turian airspace clear of any XCOM craft. It seems that whatever the turians are trying to do inside their base, they want it to themselves very desperately.

_2:00 PM._ That's what Arkady's omni-tool told him. Him, and the rest of Albatross squad were huddling behind cover deep inside human territory after being taken out of active duty. Earlier, Albatross had been sent over the improvised trench the MEC troopers hastily dug out to protect the regular agents from marksman fire to accompany a strike force to scout the enemy trench across the other side of No Man's Land. The endeavor was a success but at an astounding 60% casualty rate. From the original seven of Albatross' ranks, only three ever returned back to the human frontline trench.

"It's been an hour, yeah?" Lance Corporal Findley asked from his piece of cover after taking gulping down a swig of water from his canteen. Since the original sergeant of Albatross had lost half of his neck after three consecutive marksman rounds tore through it, Findley has been the acting sergeant of Albatross until a proper replacement could be found.

"Yeah," Arkady replied, half-whispering. He was in charge of listening to the tell-tale shrieks of enemy artillery. "Do you think the general's ever gonna get us over the trench again?"

"I'm sure," Findley assured. "Larsen's probably just waiting for Omen to come back with news. After that, we'll be-"

"All personnel, this is Captain Petrovich. Please report to the frontline, General Larsen wants to try and break the deadlock." A voice over the comms said. "I repeat, we're going over the trench."

"Well, there's your answer." The lance corporal quipped, clipping his canteen to his belt. "Let's move, squad."

_..._

**_The XCOM Frontline Trench - 14km to Fort Progeny_**

**_Private Czarniak_**

Unnerving. That's how Arkady described how General Larsen looked right now. He was wearing a bloodied bandage over his eyes. It looked like he couldn't see at all, but he acted like he wasn't blinded, given how he never tripped or how he kept facing the right person when talking. When he was finished conferring with his officers, he finally addressed his troops, bringing an omni-tool up. Even in the crowded, uncomfortable conditions of the trench they were in, no soldier complained as the general talked.

"We're here, right in our little trench," The general highlighted the eastern part of No Man's Land blue. "The turians are hunkered down over at the other side, as you surely would know by now." The western area of No Man's Land blared red. "Extremely heavy resistance awaits us if we go up this trench," The general gestured above him, above the trench and into the open plains. "We've tried to bulldoze our way to the turian lines, but all of our attempts have failed so far, but don't despair. Not anymore."

"I've recently received word from Omen team. They've reported that the aliens are hiding something important, all right." The general replaced the map displayed from his omni-tool to a live feed from Omen.

"We're still in position, sir. You want us to fall back?" Omen Leader asked. His helmeted face dominated the screen.

Larsen shook his head. "Negative, Omen. We're preparing for the assault on your position. I want you to show the troops what you found down there."

"Well, roger that." The soldier moved a hand to the side of his helmet and pressed a knob. Instantly, the view changed from his head to a view of the interiors of a room. It was a sterile, gray-painted, positively gigantic room with no windows, blindingly heavy lights and computers and machinery scattered all over it. Dead turians soldiers were haphazardly stacked on one corner of the room and some dead human soldiers could also be seen, but these were nothing compared to the object at the center of the room. It was an intact prothean beacon, with tiny little wires jacked up to the several ports it has to its sides.

"Just after we jammed all communications from coming out of this base, we heard from the alien PA system that the leaders are ordering a considerable amount of their soldiers to come and guard this thing, sir. They're also expecting reinforcements, but we intercepted their hails and jammed them." Omen Leader informed. "We came here as fast as we could, but they've already set up some turrets and barricades to block us. We took care of them, but I lost some of my men."

"You did good, Omen." Larsen said. "If you're able, I want the you and the rest of your squad to hold positions. Once we breach the facility, you'll be assisting us in securing the base. You copy?"

"Yes, sir. Omen out." The soldier cut comms, and Larsen's omni-tool went blank.

"From now on, our objective is to secure the object as well as the rest of the base." The general stated to his men, powering his omni-tool down. "We are not to use any explosives inside the base's perimeter. The director wants everything minus alien personnel completely intact. Am I understood?"

Arkady and his fellow soldiers all did their yes sirs, doing a salute to accompany it.

"Very good. Now, if I'm not mistaken, now's the time for our attack. First of all, I want the Templar-MECs to be our vanguard; they'll be in the front, shields raised and swords at the ready. The fire support MECs will be standing right behind the TMECs, constantly providing grenade launcher fire, or if possible, trading small arms fire with the aliens. The Hellstriders, because they're such big targets, are very vulnerable out there in the open. They'll be skirting around the sides, just after the main force had breached the alien trench. By this time, the aliens would be too distracted by threats closer to them to pay attention to the mectopods. Berserkers, you'll be going with the Hellstriders. Last, but not least, I'd like the augers, the psi-ops troopers and the regulars to keep behind the MEC troopers. They'll be in charge of repulsing enemy skirmishers and flankers. Any questions?"

Larsen ripped off his bandages when nobody answered, revealing his eyes, which have fully regenerated from their wounds. "Hm. Good." He donned his helmet.

_..._

**_The Hierarchy Trench - Drekplaats_**

**_July 06th, 2157 - 1410 hours_**

**_Sergeant First Class Leonellus Severus - Predator squad_**

The alien, after having a mass-accelerated marksman's bullet penetrate his helmet's eye socket, was thrown back into his trench, undoubtedly dead. _That should tell them to keep their big heads down._ Severus thought to himself as he waited for his rifle to cool down. Peering back into his scope seconds later, he silently waited for another of the aliens who thought that poking their heads out of their trench to look would be a good idea.

_Come on, you bastards_. The sergeant mentally goaded his foes. _You've all got heads the size of coffee tables._

It seems that the aliens have finally learned their lesson. Not one of them even dared to show an inch of their bodies outside their trench after several minutes. Bored, the sergeant entertained himself by hovering his scope over the giant alien walkers lumbering behind the enemy lines to observe them, which have been nicknamed by the soldiers as the "fiends". They were too far away to be fired on by rockets and too agile to be targeted by artillery with reliable precision, but they seemed content to be that way. They never even stepped foot in No-Man's-Land as of yet after the alien footsoldiers failed their initial assault.

Wise, Severus thought. Even with extremely durable armored plating, they'd be prioritized by every idiot with a missile launcher within one hundred and fifty meters. They'd be ripped to shreds by massed artillery strikes before they could even get close.

Severus wondered what it's like to be within close proximity to one of the alien walkers. They looked quite frightening with how their whole bodies are designed, with a dull, urban camouflage paintjob, horn-like protrusions coming out of their heads and curved, powerful legs that seemed to have the feet designed to flatten anything that stood in the way. Not to mention, their frames are practically bristling with weaponry.

However, standing several kilometers from the monsters was one thing that Severus was glad to have.

Suddenly, he saw movement coming out from the bottom edge of his scope. Instantly, Severus had his rifle pointed at his target's head and fired. He did his actions so fast, that he didn't realize what he's really firing at.

It was one of the smaller alien walkers - brutes, as the troopers have unofficially designated them. Before Severus' bullet and several hundred other marksmen's bullets could even touch the brute, the projectiles were suddenly vaporized when they made contact with the alien's shield. Soon, several others of the alien walkers began climbing out of the enemy trench, all brandishing electrified shields and giant swords.

_Ha! What are they planning to do with _those?" The turian sniper asked himself, chuckling. He stopped looking over his scope and looked down his sniping perch to address his fellows.

"Hey, wake up, you barefaced younglings!" He shouted down, disrupting a gambling game in process. "Man the machine-guns, get the turrets working! They're coming back for another go!" The men immediately snapped into attention. They hurriedly drew their weapons and ran over to the frontlines to man their earlier firing positions.

Severus lightly scoffed before going back over his perch. When he looked over his scope once more, he couldn't stop the terrified gasp that escaped his mouth.

The aliens weren't looking to make a recon run like they've done before. It seemed like the aliens leaders have seen enough and decided to get their offensive going.

Standing in front of the alien lines were the brutes. They were holding their shields in front of them, but their swords were sheathed, replaced by monstrous assault rifles. Just when things couldn't get any worse, the brutes began to return fire against the Hierarchy soldiers. The turians have the advantage of the cover their trench provided them, but the aliens have their brutes to soak up damage, which wasn't very hard for them, from the looks of things.

Severus, with seemingly no targets to shoot that would actually be damaged by his measly sniper rifle, began to have his scope wander over the battlefield, looking over the actions of his comrades. When the brutes have finally reached halfway across the two opposing trenches, that's when Severus heard the order to fire artillery strikes, followed by a quick pincer maneuver by turian footsoldiers to finish off any of the few surviving walkers.

The turian marksman immediately had his scope hover over the alien walkers once more to see the fireworks. He felt a rush of excitement when he heard the shriek of a friendly bombardment, about to deliver a swift punishment to the aliens for their impertinence.

However, much to Severus' shock and disappointment, the alien walkers never disappeared in a shower of explosives. The friendly shells and missiles, as they descended to deliver the killing blow, seemed to be influenced by an invisible force; going off-course and exploding harmlessly in an unoccupied area of the battlefield. That's when more of the aliens hurriedly charged over the trench, supplementing their mechanized brethren, plasma weapons brought to bear and bayonets intimidatingly fixed.

Severus couldn't help but feel extreme anger when he saw his comrades' flanking maneuver fail spectacularly when they failed to account for enemy reinforcements. Their positions were immediately rooted out, and then they were mercilessly cut down by enemy energy weapons fire, having failed to accomplish anything but to die pointless deaths.

The sergeant already had his rifle put to work when viable targets came. He always made the point to shoot for the head, as his bullets do nothing at any other area. More than a few enemy soldiers fell to Severus, but there were always more.

When the aliens were already within spitting distance of the Hierarchy trench, several of Severus' fellows suddenly either turned on each other inexplicably, or ran away from the frontlines in a panic, screaming about voices in their heads as the cowards ran for their lives. Luckily for Severus, he never experienced any voices in his head. It's simply imposs-

_YOU THINK OF OUR CAPABILITIES AS "IMPOSSIBLE"? _

Immediately, Severus found himself lying down on his perch, his rifle cluttering uselessly as it was thrown backwards. The turian marskman shook his head and tried to compose himself, but-

_YOUR FELLOW SOLDIERS BRAVELY SACRIFICED THEIR LIVES ON THE FRONTLINES,_

_WHILE YOU COWER AND HIDE BEHIND SAFETY, LIKE THE WEAKLING YOU ARE._

When Severus head the words "cower" and "weakling", he immediately gained control of most of his body as his temper got hold of him. He tried to ignore the forces inside his mind as he reached for his rifle. Going back to his firing position, Severus began to pick off alien troopers once more, but his aim isn't what it used to be. Now, he kept making mistakes that he'd have to actively _try_ to make when he was his competent self. Gritting his teeth as he waited for his overheated rifle to cool down, Severus tried to gain full control of his bod-

_YOU TRY TO RESIST ME? VERY IMPRESSIVE. _

_IT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE, HOWEVER._

_YOU AND ALL YOUR KIND WILL NEVER LEAVE THIS PLANET ALIVE._

_YOU ARE MERELY AN OBSTACLE IN OUR WAY, TO BE BLOTTED OUT LIKE FLAMES IN THE DARKNESS._

Severus opened his eyes. He was on the floor again. His control over his own body is now gone. He's useless.

_I WILL GIVE YOU ONE LAST THING TO BEHOLD BEFORE THE INEVITABLE._

_RISE, ALIEN. RISE AND BEHOLD OUR MIGHT. _

Abruptly, control is now fully restored to Severus. He took up his position again, confident that he's finally free from the force's grasp. But before he could finally put himself at ease, one last word was heard from the voices:

_DESPAIR._

"I think not." The marksman said out loud, before putting an eye over his rifle scope to resume his duties. What he saw, indeed, made him despair.

The turian trench is already on the verge of being overrun. The brutes have broken through and were now actively engaging turian soldiers in brutal melee combat while the alien regulars stood back and took potshots at their enemies. Things look already bleak, but then they came.

Roaring in fury, armored figures began to descend from the sky on jump packs with what were essentially swords equipped with saw-like powered teeth that ran along a single bladed edge on their clutches. Turian soldiers, already in the process of breaking, were no match for these berserkers as their ranks were quite literally ripped to bloody pieces, their armor quite helpless to stop the blades that rent them asunder. But that was before the fiends came from the flanks and effortlessly annihilated clusters of turians on their own.

Severus gulped. His position, while far from the frontlines, was a very dangerous position indeed. He unbolted his rifle from its perch and attached it to his back. The turian marksman was ready to leave, when suddenly, something crashed into his perch, knocking him down. Severus flipped himself over and found one of the berserkers standing over him, electrified steel claws coated in blue fluids adorning his gauntlets.

Sergeant Severus, along with nearly seventy percent of fourteen thousand, never left Drekplaats alive.

* * *

**XCOM DATABASE**

* * *

**I. Hellfire**

A product of a peculiar mixture of a sample of Meld aged a century, refined jellied Elerium and a whiff of Element Zero, this compound was a recent addition to the Federation's arsenal of weaponry, but was already used for civilian purposes since the 2060s under the civilian name of "Redactor".

If used as fuel for a flame-spewing device, victims or objects were not _just _horribly burned, but their organic and synthetic components would also be eaten away down to their most basic form. XCOM agents favored Hellfire for its effectiveness in destroying any evidence to the paramilitary organization's existence, or other objects that their director had deemed fit for incineration.

Its effectiveness for combat uses had been debated throughly among both the Federation and XCOM's military circles. Proponents of Hellfire for use in combat claim that the compound is a weapon useful for any type of enemy, whether it be infantry or armor, saving several soldiers' lives when they would've otherwise been lost. Opponents claim that Hellfire leaves their victims to die in a horrific, agonizing way, leaving nothing of them in the end, before going as far as to say that the compound itself is "inhumane", and should be banned from further use.

Disadvantages of Hellfire in combat include that the mixture is often quite ineffective when used in an open environment, and the fires themselves are fairly easy to put out with the slightest effort, which is offset by the extreme amount of pain the victim was forced to undergo, leaving them helpless and reliant on external sources to put their fires out. Hellfire also takes a fairly long time to eat away inorganic material, making using them against hostile armor only effective when combined with time.

**_II. "Iconoclast" Purge Trooper Environmental Exoframe Mk. I_**

Exclusive to XCOM forces is the Iconoclast Exoframe. This suit of Ilyushinite armor is designed for use by Meld-augmented agents, as the suit's systems directly interface with whatever augs the agent possessed in his or her body, further boosting his or her capabilities in combat. The Iconoclast's gauntlets were typically fitted with a plasma cannon and a close combat weapon of some sort, and both can be hidden or retracted back into their gauntlet form at will. Since this suit of armor is exceptionally heavy, its use is often limited to purge trooper duties, as most agents issued an Iconoclast for long hours planetside will find him or herself heavily encumbered, only useful as a big lump of cover for his/her unexhausted comrades.

When in space, the suit's VI systems automatically seals the armor shut, rendering it completely vacuum sealed. When the suit detects that the environment was no longer that of space, it automatically unseals itself so that medikits, combat stims and restorative mists could have their usual effects on wounded agents. Lastly, agents have been known to customize their Iconoclast to accommodate their preferred way of fighting.

More recently, the Iconoclast Exoframe had received upgrades to its environmental protection hardware, allowing users to survive in heavily irradiated or blizzard-infested environments with ease (assuming the agent wearing the Iconoclast is strong enough to be able to take his/her armor planetside for the latter). Common complaints from XCOM operatives typically include the Iconoclast's incapability to filter out Thin Man poison or other, more similar agents out of the armor, resulting in death or severe injury to the wearer.

**_III. Hellstrider Mk. VI Mectopods_**

Since the (mostly) phasing-out of the tank, sectopods have taken the center stage when it came to armored fighting vehicles suited to frontline roles. Prized for their extreme durability and ridiculous amount of firepower, the sectopods have been in the Federation and XCOM's arsenal for more than a century since their implementation. The same statement could be applied to the Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit. In 2083, Federation and XCOM military scientists, trying to find a way to create a weapon that's more powerful and resilient than sectopods and more dextrous and versatile than MEC troopers, have made the decision to combine the two juggernauts' best traits within a single mechanized unit that made use of a human pilot, much like both the former and the latter.

The result is the Hellstrider Mectopod.

Armed with a giant electrified claw on the right hand, a fusion lance on the left, a plasma assault cannon on one shoulder and a missile battery on another, the Hellstrider is basically a walking armory. Hellstrider pilots were hand-picked from the best fighter pilots available, and the pilots themselves were thrown into the most grueling, most backbreaking sort of training that allows them to pilot Hellstriders with machinelike precision and fluidity. The mectopods themselves were intentionally made to look terrifying and nightmarish to invoke a primal fear amongst the enemy's ranks, making psychological warfare another weapon to be utilized by the Hellstrider pilot.

**_IV. The Second Battle for Shanxi - statistics_**

Combatants: Federation Navy, XCOM Detachment S:17/Jarrakus Mondranor Legion, Draius Ferlodinus Legion

Estimated turian vessel count: 700+ frigates, 400+ cruisers, 4 dreadnoughts

Total human vessel count: 284 Charleston-class frigates, 318 Williamsburg-class cruisers, 52 Luciana-class hiveships, 73 Thanatos-class devilships, 7 Fredrickson-class dreadnoughts, 1 Cthulhu-class dreadnought, 1 Seeker Ship

**_V. Operation: Slumbering Titan - statistics_**

Combatants: XCOM Detachment Y:71/Drekplaats Planetary Defense Force

Estimated turian navy vessels: 50+ frigates, 200+ cruisers, 1 space station

Total XCOM navy vessels: 19 Dublin-class podbearers, 1 Tranquil-class hunter-killer carrier

Estimated turian military personnel: 14,000+

Total XCOM field personnel: 3,650 agents

**_VI. Hunter-killer carriers_**

These gigantic carriers vessels exclusive to XCOM are outfitted to be most useful in situations that necessitated the use of massed fighter screens equipped with EMP cannons to render enemy spaceborne vessels fit for swift capture and dismantlement. Almost as difficult to make as ordinary dreadnoughts, only less than a hundred of these vessels are within the XCOM navy. Typically, these carriers carry more than ten thousand crewmen or more, and about several tens of thousands of unmanned fighter drones that served as the "steelshields" of the manned fighters.

**_VII. Berserkers_**

Also exclusive to XCOM and several other paramilitary organizations, these "soldiers" were in fact hardened criminals, overly-aggressive agitators, rebels, pirates, terrorists, fringe world homesteaders who wanted "independence" from the Federation and former EXALT agents that were captured, sent for death row/life imprisonment and were "rescued" by XCOM recruiters looking for expendable, unthinking troopers to throw in the meatgrinder in place of regular agents.

These troopers are heavily augmented, are only ever "recruited" in times of war or conflict, and are constantly pumped full of combat stims and other drugs to supplement their strength and heighten their aggression towards enemy forces - human or otherwise. As a result of their augs, they are capable of living for several centuries without dying of old age. They are kept from going rogue by extreme mental conditionings and inhibitions, and for extra protection, these soldiers are always in close proximity with a Gamma-class psionic or above.

It's a fact that most of the active berserkers today are in fact a hundred years old, and in times of peace, are kept imprisoned and sedated in inert Meld vats in bases, vessels and FOBs, to be released only when the call for war has been issued. It's expected that once these berserkers have all been killed off, XCOM will start recruiting from the Federation's local death rows once more.

Very rarely, a berserker will be given command of his own squad of his/her fellow berserkers (and even rarer, regular XCOM agents), if he/she had proven him/herself capable of leading. These berserkers often were berserkers only in name, having reformed themselves enough to think clearly, without drugs to cloud their minds.

* * *

As of Monday, 29th of February, this chapter has been purged of a bucketload of errors and boring text. There might still be plenty of boring text (such as this one), but I don't have any more time to correct them. Sorry!


	4. Victory, or Bust

Just so you know, this chapter took so long because it used to be over **seventy-thousand words long! **Ehem, more on why is that not the case now below._  
_

* * *

_**APIEN CREST/CASTELLUS SYSTEM**_

_**The Deserter's Post, historical Krogan Rebellions military execution site for war criminals, krogan warlords and traitors – Digeris**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 0600 hours, dawn**_

_**Former Hierarchy Admiral Aureliana 'Lina' Nandrakan – scheduled for execution by firing squad**_

"Keep moving." A stern, bad-tempered voice ordered. "Do what you're told, and this shouldn't go on for much longer."

The former Hierarchy admiral was hustled further, into the morning lights. With her mandibles hanging lower than usual, her sunken, weary eyes that lacked a single gleam of life, and her body still clad in the blood-caked, foul-reeking uniform she wore on that disastrous day, Lina was _tired_. Very tired indeed. Suffice it to say, this isn't one of her finer moments.

When she was finally ushered fully into the light, what she saw was far from what she was envisaging.

The crowds should've been roaring with searing, mind-consuming hate and vitriol directed at her, shouting for death to claim her with utmost swiftness. And yet, nary a single, profanity-laden scream of rage came from them; the whole area around Lina was as taciturn and reserved as an exalted primarch's military funeral. Instead of shouts and curses, only the stonily dour, grim-faced glares from her kin were what she received from the countless men, women and in some cases – _children,_ who were attending her publicized execution.

Somehow, Lina found their stares to be much more unnerving than the bloodthirsty mob she expected. She thought she could face the crowds with the courage and resolve she always possessed, with her dignity and confidence intact. But by how her fellow turians looked at her with silent, extremely unsettling disapproval, the condemned admiral couldn't help but feel demoralized; as if the already feeble amount of strength she clung to was now being sapped away from her body by their gazes alone.

The crowds were the least of her worries, however. She wasn't to be executed by soldiers she know not of, but owing to the meddling of a particularly cruel core world primarch, out of malevolent spite to her, she was to be killed by none other than her own family's hands, with some of her best and most trusted soldiers holding some of the rifles as well.

Lina, flanked and restrained by two burly, unyieldingly austere soldiers in their dress blues, was herded to the spot where she was to be killed. On the way there, she spared a look at her family for a final time. There was her younger sister Lucilla – a flight lieutenant in charge of her own squadron of fighter pilots. She looked to be on the verge of breaking and turning the gun on her talons on the two soldiers holding her older sister, but through the look on the condemned admiral's face, Lina wordlessly pleaded her sister not to, encouraging her to be strong for her.

There was also her father, an enormous ex-legion officer going by the name of Octarius. His hands were subtly quivering, implying that his grip on the rifle he was holding threatened to snap the gun in two. However, being a seasoned, retired military veteran, the rest of his body radiated with resigned, unruffled calmness, knowing that there was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent the death of one of his beloved daughters. Lina sent him a ghastly, withered smile in response. It looked utterly dreadful to anyone else, but to Octarius, he'd treasure and hold it dearly within his memories, as it might well be the last he'll see of the bravest, smartest and most passionate of his children.

Lastly, his brother Captain Hadrian was also there, standing completely straight in attention like an infantryman on guard. Unlike his father and his sister, he didn't look distressed at the slightest – a little bit uninterested, actually. He frequently sneaked some glances on his field chrono and regularly fiddled with his rifle as he waited, as if he was making sure his weapon would never malfunction during the whole process. Lina couldn't find anything to make of her brother's peculiar behavior, as she was always very close to him. She assumed the worst – that he shared the same sentiments as most turians do on the subject of Admiral Aureliana Nandrakan.

When the admiral finally reached the antiquated, steel-clad wall, the two soldiers escorting her gruffly released their grips, took a single step to their sides, walked two steps forwards before turning left and leaving the convicted admiral by herself. Lina looked up from her position, to look back at the crowds staring at her. By both fortune and misfortune for the admiral, the view was being partially obscured by the scum-sucking, barefaced, bootlicker of a general overseeing her execution.

"Admiral Aureliana Septima Nandrakan," Major General Lucanus started, seemingly disgusted with himself upon uttering Lina's title and full name. Lina remembered Lucanus since she was still in legion school. His family, the Valorus family, was in a longstanding, under-the-table political feud with hers. The admiral thought that the general must have been enjoying himself immensely as he talked, taking some twisted form of delight at being given the chance to put down an enemy of his family, in public and by legal means, no less.

"You are here to stand for your failure to achieve victory over the Relay 314 race that the fleet under your command was sent to pacify days ago." He stated, his tone enough to rival a councilor in terms of grandeur and magnificence. "Of the hundreds of vessels and thousands of men put under your overall command, you've lost more than sixty-five percent of your forces. You suffered unacceptable losses during the first volleys of the fight, including the destruction of the _Wrath of Slyrak _and the death of Rear Admiral Cassius. Your ground invasion failed utterly; General Arterius, Lieutenant General Severus, and Air Marshal Caracalla weren't so fortunate enough to live through the whole affair, and your remaining spaceborne forces plus the reinforcements the primarchs have sent you were repulsed by the enemy response fleet – embarrassingly so. What's more, your actions have effectively shattered an image that stood for…"

Lina blocked Lucanus out when he started talking about the 'image'. She soon imagined the general's non-existence; how much of a marginally better parallel universe might that've been, if only she lived there. She never liked how people like Lucanus tended to flap their mandibles around, trying in vain to have his fellow turians pay attention not to the soldier about to be shot to pieces, but to him and his grandiose, obnoxiously loud and emphasized way of speaking. _Why can't they just get this damned execution over and done with_? Lina pondered irritably. _It's bad enough that my family and friends were ordered to carry out my own death._

"…have you anything to say for yourself, Aureliana?" The general finished, after a gruelling three-minute speech about how Lina failed the turian race through her incompetence… or something to that effect. "The next few words you'll utter will be your last. Keep that in mind."

_Fuck you, I say_. Lina imagined herself speaking those words. Instead, she swallowed her growing irritation, composed herself and said all she could say about her experiences in the Relay 314 incident, and how she did all she could.

"I was never at fault," She began, her voice barely above a gentle breeze's murmur. "What should have been done, I've already done – several times over. There was nothing more my men and I could have done to salvage that doomed operation. My fleet didn't falter in the line of duty because of ineptitude on my part; it's because of things that are out of my hands."

The admiral began to grow in strength as she spoke, banishing her earlier weakness brought on by exhaustion and disheartenment. "When my fleet exited the relay, things were going like they always were: smooth, simple and according to protocol. Then immediately after, things went very wrong for us. These 'primitives', as we as a race had always believed every race we had first contact scenarios with, weren't so primitive after all; they possessed weapons far beyond our understanding. Could you believe that one of their frigates could stand toe-to-toe with one of cruisers? We did all we could to mitigate the fleet's losses and shouldered on towards our objective, confident of success. In the end, we only prevailed because we significantly outnumbered the alien colony's orbital defenses. After that, when I gave the order for the landborne invasion, my generals encountered extremely heavy resistance. These aliens carried firearms that operated on a principle that our kinetic barriers weren't meant to shield our soldiers against, giving them a major advantage and turning an otherwise even fight into a landslide victory in their favor. General Arterius, Lieutenant General Severus and Marshal Caracalla were my most trusted officers, they'd never go and let their men perish without a fight, but their experience and expertise weren't enough to salvage the invasion. They died doing what they lived for, standing proud and defiant even as death descended upon them. With their objectives rendered unattainable, the ground-based forces had no other choice but to fall back, with some of my soldiers volunteering to stay behind to cover the evac shuttles' escape. When I received word that the incursion failed, I realized that I could never return to Palaven without my honor being so vilified and maligned, that I might as well be a krogan warlord in the company of a battalion of Blackwatch troopers."

The admiral gravely sighed. "The only thing I could've done then, is to nuke the colony to pieces, wait for reinforcements to arrive and reattempt another invasion."

"Just when I thought things couldn't go any more worse for us, my reinforcements did come – in pieces, and on the run from the alien response fleet, which had intercepted them while making their way to us. Even with extra vessels under my command, our combined legions stood little chance of winning. As the woman in charge of the operation, all the guilt resulting from our defeat was shifted to me, and I _gladly_ took all the blame upon myself as my own personal failing, even if I performed all of my duties to the best of my abilities. Since returning to Palaven, I no longer cared for myself, only the shame that my family had to bear, being related to the woman who broke our race's _concept of invulnerability_." Lina's voice practically oozed with contemptuous disgust upon uttering the last three words she spoke. "Killing me now will only deprive the turian navy a leader who might've proven useful against this new threat, for having already experienced a battle with them first-hand. This… this _ritual _I'm being forced to enact would only give the turian race another shortcoming against what lies—"

"That's enough of your lies, _admiral_." Lucanus cut the condemned admiral off abruptly, making all sorts of wild gestures with his arms. "To think that you are of the Nandrakan family, spouting off such rotten falsehoods to salvage your misbegotten life! You deserve everything that's coming to you."

Lina scoffed tiredly. She had expected Lucanus to act like he did since she started talking. The general then started issuing orders to the executioners. This is it, the admiral thought. It is time for her to depart.

"Soldiers, make ready!" The general ordered, stepping down his platform to directly address his troops. After spending a fleeting moment, the soldiers received their orders and nodded grudgingly.

"Level… arms!" Lucanus drew his own weapon and trained it downrange; following the long-established turian tradition of personally firing the first shot with a pistol. Octarius and Lucilla slowly and reluctantly followed their comrades suit and prepared to end the life of one of their own. Hadrian, however, crisply levelled his rifle at Lina, as sharp and precise as if he was on a military parade.

Lina herself only shrugged, her way of saying 'Well, I tried'. Not that she can actually do anything else, given her exhausted state. Already accepting of her end, the former admiral waited for the general to squeeze a talon on the trigger.

…

_**The Deserter's Post, Digeris**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 0600 hours**_

_**Captain Hadrian Nandrakan – 82nd Kellenad Marine Division**_

He closed his eyes. He knew that his sister noticed his apathetic demeanor to her plight, but he cared not. It'd only affect him all the greater if he did.

At least three of the guns the ten executioners were provided were equipped with ammo blocks that were designed to provide harmless duds as ammunition. With an armored talon firmly placed against his rifle's trigger, Hadrian hoped that his weapon was one of the ones outfitted with the blank blocks.

"Behold," General Lucanus' voice thundered amidst the silence. "The price of failure!"

Suddenly, just when Lucanus was just about to fire a shot, Hadrian's comm-bead let loose a burst of static, which was quickly followed by Primarch Corvinius' familiar aristocratic Palavenese accent.

"General Valorus, stop this at once!" The primarch ordered, his voice frantic. "I'm cancelling the execution, tell your men to stand down."

The look of shocked disbelief on General Lucanus' face was present within a second, but it was gone in another. "Primarch? Is that you?" He faked his pleasantly surprised tone of voice. "Can you speak more clearly, sir? The static's making a mess on my comms."

"Don't carry out the execution, general!" The primarch repeated. "I'm personally putting a stop to this nonsense. I need you to—"

"I still can't hear you, sir!" Lucanus insisted, despite Hadrian and his colleagues hearing everything the primarch said with utmost clarity. "I'm sorry to put you down, but we need to carry our duties out, primarch. For Palaven, Valorus ou—"

Before the general could even finish his sentence, Hadrian was already on him. The captain bashed the stock end of his rifle onto the startled general's shoulder, the momentum causing him to spin away. He quickly followed up his surprise attack by swiftly kicking Lucanus' right calf, bringing him crashing down face-first onto the metal floor.

Lucanus took more time to pick himself up and comprehend the sudden turn of events than the time it took for Lina's executioners to shift their rifles towards him, away from the woman they were scheduled to shoot down. Hadrian simply booted the discarded pistol near the general away before doing the same thing as his comrades did; he made sure the general felt the cold, unforgiving steel that was the rifle barrel right at the back of his head fringe. He nearly huffed in annoyance at the palpable irony if his rifle _was_ housing a blank block.

"You're under arrest, General Valorus." The captain, smooth and rigid as ever, stated. "The primarch will come for you shortly."

...

_**The Deserter's Post, Digeris**_

_**July 07th – 2157 – 0720 hours**_

_**Primarch Valerius Corvinius**_

_I should've never sent her out here._ The primarch repeated to himself for the umpteenth time. _Valorus must have already had her shot to death. The Hierarchy needed her, and I sent her out to be killed._ He bitterly thought, his hands balled and his head hung low. Valerius tried hard not to think about how he stood idle while his fellow primarchs agreed to replace the usual executioners with a certain set of 'volunteers'.

_This is all my fault._

Valerius, after several minutes of silently marching his way to the executioner's block with his retinue, arrived at the last door. It was being guarded by two soldiers, who were relaxed enough to have a casual conversation. What they talked about was too muffled by the fully enclosed helmets they wore to be heard clearly.

When they noticed his approach, the two soldiers dropped their discussion promptly. "Primarch." They greeted, followed by two simultaneous salutes.

Valerius doesn't have it in him to give a greeting of his own. He gestured for his escorts to stand guard behind him before deciding to get straight to the point. "Admiral Aureliana is dead, is she not? I told General Valorus to halt the execution, but he told me he couldn't hear my voice over the comms."

"Ah," One of the soldiers eased his stance as he raised his visor. "Don't worry about it, sir. Admiral Aureliana's execution has been halted per your orders."

The primarch's left mandible drooped in shock. He reformed himself in short order. "You mean the general heard me clearly after all? Are you absolutely sure, sergeant?"

The soldier scoffed curtly. "He heard you loud and clear, sir. Unfortunately for him, so did the guys assigned as the gunmen."

"Explain?" The primarch asked.

The soldier, having been indoctrinated to obey his superiors with unquestioning loyalty, immediately tried to relay the events that had transpired in his primarch's absence. "Well sir, he _attempted _to go against your orders to carry on with the execution. Why he decided to go with it, I can't tell. Luckily, some captain from Kellanad was quick on his—"

The doors behind the two soldiers opened inwards, interrupting the sergeant. Valerius was presented with the sight of Admiral Aureliana, flanked by four soldiers in full armor. She was still looking as dishevelled and spent as before, but when she saw Valerius, she shook off her condition to try and look as fresh as she could. She nearly failed.

The primarch let out an audible sigh of relief. "Titans, Nandrakan. I feared the worst, but thank the Spirits things turned out better than what I had come to expect. What happened out there?"

Lina opened her mouth to speak, but one of the soldiers following her beat her to the punch.

"General Valorus had pretended not to hear your words over the comms, sir. He _wanted_ Lina dead, and tried to proceed with the execution despite your orders. We put a stop to that." He reported, but not before saluting and straightening himself.

Before the primarch could even properly give his thanks to the soldier – whom he noticed had the insignia of the 82nd Kellanad emblazoned on the side of his helmet, Lina feebly pushed him aside, cutting in. She issued a quick apology to the soldier before facing the man who ordered a complete halt to her execution.

"Why?" She asked, her expression blank and her tone devoid of inflections.

The primarch, caught unprepared, fumbled around for his answer for a few seconds before answering, "The situation has changed. I've just received word from our invasion forces, and from the survivors of the Drekplaats outpost Primarch Sinderion had posted three years ago." He looked Lina up and down, before speaking in a hushed tone, "After you've finished attending to your… _condition_, I'd like you to report to the briefing room in this building upstairs. Make sure to make yourself presentable. Some of your fellow admirals are joining us."

"'Fellow admirals', primarch? Last I checked, they took my rank away from me. I'm no admiral."

The primarch frowned. _Her fatigue must be getting to her mind_. "Isn't it obvious yet? I've cleared you of all perceived wrongdoings and restored your admiral status this morning. You told me the turian race needed every advantage it could get to survive the coming storm; letting you die because of some thousand-year-old directive from a long-dead primarch isn't an action our people could afford." He raised a hand, and in an instant, a member of his retinue came next to him, holding a metallic case.

"To say the least, I'm taking a lot of heat from the general public and the other primarchs for my decision. But I know well enough that my status amongst my peers is nothing compared to the future and well being of our race. Your new uniform and your confiscated personal effects are in here." He took the case and handed it to the bewildered, newly-reinstated admiral.

"I'd advise you to attend to yourself with utmost haste. The longer you delay, the more time our enemy could use to prepare for our approach." As Lina stared at him in disbelief, the primarch and his escorts had already turned around, marching off back to where they came from. Never had she encountered a politician who actually took her words with some consideration.

"Oh, and Lina?" The primarch halted his walk and turned around.

The admiral immediately turned her head to him at his mention of her sobriquet. Normally, only her most trusted friends and allies are allowed to call her like he did, but his actions today had proved that the primarch was, indeed, an ally of hers.

"The Hierarchy Navy welcomes you back. For Palaven," He thumped a fist to his chest.

Lina summoned all of her strength to give the primarch her best salute. "Die for the cause." She finished.

…

_**HEILONG CLUSTER/SHANXI-THETA SYSTEM**_

_**Containment Cell #1736, FNWS Annihilation – In close proximity with Xinjiang Docking Station**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 0720 hours**_

_**Admiral Galvocius, 'AA-0001' – In shared Federalist/XCOM custody**_

He had been observing his captors for some time now. Despite his fellow turian prisoners' requests to have himself take some rest, Galvocius stayed up all night.

Several times did some of the aliens pass by his cell, repeatedly marching to and fro to attend to their duties and other sorts of inane triviality. Once every few minutes, the aliens sometimes stopped their monotonous trudging to peer through the transparent reinforced glass that served as Galvocius' cell walls to look at him and the three fellow turians he shared his cell with. More often than not, they were soldiers either clad in the blue-and-green heavy-duty envirosuits that made them just as large and intimidating as krogan mercs operating within Terminus, or more conventional-looking, beige-colored body armor.

They never opened their mouths to talk to Galvocius, however. They only either inquisitively stared at him for a few seconds before moving on, or glared at him as if he did something so heinous and atrocious, that he earned several seconds of hateful glowering. These soldiers kept visiting his cell for several hours on end, long enough for Galvocius to notice that these aliens belonged to two aligned factions, judging from their uniforms.

Soon enough, the soldiers stopped appearing altogether. They were replaced with aliens in labcoats and workmen's clothes. It was clear that they were scientists and engineers.

One of them, an elderly, unwell-looking scientist that walked around with the assistance of a cane, looked Galvocius up and down, side to side, over and over. It's as if he wasn't an enemy prisoner of war, but an exotic piece of meat, ready for be served in the most repulsively alien of manners.

Once the alien stepped away from the glass, to Galvocius' horror and astonishment, a creature he could only classify as an abomination replaced him.

The glass standing between the admiral and the abomination automatically retracted to the side at its presence. Instinctively, the turians backed away from the walls slightly, moving towards the furthest corner of the cell.

"Hello," The creature waved a spindly, wire-laden mechanical arm, as if in greeting. Galvocius studied it from a distance.

Besides the very obvious cybernetic implants it had, the creature looked like yet another member of the alien species that had him as a captive. On top of its head lies a short coat of black fur with whitish-gray areas, the right side of its face is fused with metallic parts and wires, and the left part of its lower jaw appears to have been completely substituted with a cybernetic prosthesis. Under the lights, it was very clear that the creature's whole form was overwhelmingly dominated by mechanical implants and replacements.

Last but not least, it also seemed that its lower body, which normally consisted of two leg-like appendages for movement, has been replaced with an eight-legged, purely mechanical chassis. Servos whirred and whined as the creature moved on its talon-tipped legs, cautiously advancing towards the turians.

_It must've gone through one hell of an accident to end up looking like that._ Galvocius pondered to himself as the creature approached.

"If I may ask, I would like to know which one of you is the one called Commodore Isadorius. He volunteered to be tested for his tissue and blood sample two hours ago." In a strange, croaky tone of voice that mirrored a quarian Kavodoman accent, the creature asked. "Dr. Kobayashi is in need of his company."

Galvocius turned his head and found his fellow turian grimacing before shaking his head and walking forwards. Whether he'd still be alive after being 'tested', isn't known to the admiral.

Before turning to leave with his chosen subject, the creature talked one more time, this time to Galvocius. "Admiral, your request has been approved. We found your soldier. If you would kindly follow me and my associates, I would be glad to lead you to him…" The creature seemed to pause, thinking over what he's about to say. In the end, it sufficed with, "Or what is still left of him."

_I knew it_. Galvocius bitterly thought. Without further thought, he stepped forward and stood with the creature, which seemed to tower over him by at least a foot and a half. It seemed to smile at him before beckoning him and the commodore to follow him out of their cells. Before the two turians even left their cell, however, they were immediately flanked from all sides by a six-man squad of soldiers that had seemed to materialize from clouds of bluish-white particles.

_There were invisible sentries guarding us all along?_

"I am sorry," The creature apologized, his machinelike tone sincere. "The two of you are military personnel from a race hostile to our own. Safety protocol dictates that I needed guards to keep you in order, in the unlikely case you have less than pleasant thoughts of escaping already formulated."

What the creature said was a lie, Galvocius thought. It could probably take two unarmed turians down effortlessly with the multitude of weapons it most likely had mounted on its body if it wanted to.

…

_**Disassembly Hangar – FNWS Annihilation**_

_**0730 hours**_

_**Admiral Galvocius**_

"So, I have been told that you are the one in charge of the invasion fleet that retreated recently."

Galvocius removed his sight from the massive, exoskeleton-suited aliens that worked to scuttle two Demetrius-class frigates and back to the creature he was following. How these aliens managed to construct a vessel large enough to house a scuttling bay that could safely contain a duo of turian frigates so easily was a secret that the admiral figured that the Hierarchy Navy would gladly kill thousands of people to know.

"Yes, that would be me. Your troops executed a very bold move – infiltrating the biggest dreadnought they could find after identifying it as the command ship, effectively decapitating the entire turian fleet. I didn't even know you could do such a thing." He answered. Since his fellow turian was handed over to another group of heavily armed aliens into another corridor of the ship he was in, it was now only Galvocius, the creature, and six armed soldiers.

"Would your fleet really crumble like that so easily?" The creature light-heartedly asked, as if he was just making idle conversation.

"No," The admiral immediately answered. He found himself insulted at the creature's question, but since these aliens were oblivious to turian military principles, it could be forgiven. "After I'm gone, it'd take less than two minutes for my fleet to reorganize itself with a new leader as its head. It'd be like I was never captured at all."

The creature made a mechanical humming sound, going along with the turian. "Then why did you order your fleet to withdraw when you could have kept fighting?"

A part of Galvocius' mind asked him the same question before. It chastised him for bringing an early end to the Hierarchy's retaliatory strike. However, rationality and sensibleness prevailed in the end. Even with superior numbers and tactics, the turian navy simply isn't powerful enough to face another navy fielding directed energy weapons, the bane of kinetic barrier technology.

"I had to order them to withdraw. The invasion was a losing proposition from the start." He simply said, his tone all but dreary. "You destroyed or captured only about eighteen percent of my fleet. You can be assured, the rest will be back, stronger than before. You'd have a much harder time trying to keep up with the Hierarchy's fleet."

"No doubt." The creature replied, seeming unconcerned of the threat. "Oh," Suddenly, the creature stopped on its tracks, as well as the squad of soldiers he had for protection. So far, they haven't done anything but guard the creature in a manner more akin to automatons and machines than actual living beings.

"Pardon my impudence, but I have not introduced myself yet to such a high-ranking enemy officer!" The creature chirped out, much to Galvocius' further bewilderment. "The prospect of meeting an alien that belonged to a different species that our race has not yet encountered has apparently deprived me of my manners. I am Dr. Maksim Shevchenko – principal engineer to the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. What are you called?" Dr. Shevchenko smiled as he waited for the turian admiral to answer. It was something that looked utterly disturbing, as the right organic side of his mouth appeared to be shredded open upon closer inspection.

Galvocius is now too confused to even comprehend his situation. One moment, this unholy fusion of machine and flesh was poking fun at his fleet's capabilities, and now, he seemed all too eager to start having pleasantries with someone he should be devising ways to kill.

It took him several fleeting moments of staring at the doctor's frayed mouth before the admiral responded, "…You can just call me Tresdin."

"Of course." The doctor nodded. Servomotors buzzed as he moved his head up and down. "By the way, through our scans on your biological structures, we found that your bodies are very different compared to us humans; your amino acids are not what we would call 'normal'. You and your contemporaries would most likely be unable to ingest our food. Fortunately, my colleagues from the scientific department have had found a way to provide you with sustenance by studying and testing the military-grade rations we found inside your ships. Therefore, we…"

Galvocius sighed. This is going to be a long day indeed.

…

_**SERPENT NEBULA/WIDOW**_

_**The Council Chambers – The Citadel**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 0745 hours**_

_**Councilor Selissa Tevos**_

"Well, Tevos?" Keldron asked.

The asari councilor's eyes were wide with shock and incredulity as she read the datapad in her hands. Councilor Sparatus had finally given all the information he could provide from the crisis plaguing his people after receiving permission to do so from Palaven Command. Now, he's at one corner of the Chambers, brooding. It seems that the military execution he held so dear didn't go the way he wanted it to, and he isn't taking it so well.

Tevos had to force herself to avert her gaze from the datapad to her salarian counterpart, who was waiting patiently for her input. The two councilors shared a stare for several eerily silent seconds before Tevos unceremoniously shoved the datapad to Keldron's chest. The salarian councilor bucked at the force that impacted him, but he wasted no time going over the device he was given. His reaction to the information before him was exactly what Tevos expected.

"Two hundred thousand dead turian soldiers, hundreds of destroyed or missing vessels and a total of six dreadnoughts destroyed or unaccounted for?!" Keldron practically screamed out his words. "This is insanity. Pure unbridled insanity!"

Tevos was more restrained, however. "Indeed it is. I can't believe it took the turians this long to tell us the news."

"We aren't dealing with primitives here, Tevos. These new arrivals could easily give us a bloodier nose than the krogans ever did, and in a lot less time." Keldron noted. "What do you think we should do? We've just learned of this, but the situation is already in danger of going out of hand."

"We must act. Immediately." The asari councilor answered, mustering all of her strength. "I'm calling the matriarchs for an emergency meeting. You should inform the Union about the news. Ask them if they could provide some diplomats – and if all else fails, _soldiers_."

"This won't end well…" Keldron said, his confidence faltering.

Tevos shook her head as she tried to force the built-up anxiety out of her mind. "Don't despair. One way or another, the Council will get through this like we always do. If things go in our favor, we can look forward to welcoming another race to our galactic community."

"But what of the turians?" The salarian councilor asked. "They're the ones who got us into this mess by taking the most unwise decision they could've taken. Should we ask for diplomats from the Hierarchy as well?"

"We aren't just going to leave our allies behind, but I'm afraid the turians would be too busy trying to plan their offensives out. Once the turians are geared for war, nothing short of an enemy surrender or a treaty could get them to stop. It's up to our races, Letan." Tevos answered. "Let's get to it."

…

_**APIEN CREST/CASTELLUS SYSTEM**_

_**The Deserter's Post, Level Five – en-route to the Briefing Room**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 1400 hours**_

_**Admiral Nandrakan**_

"That was a close call, Lina. If that son-of-a-bitch ever gave us an order to shoot a Nandrakan again, I'd personally crash my fighter into his family's estate."

Lina, having finally rested her tired eyes and now looking quite presentable in her new uniform, spared Lucilla an amused look. "You've crashed your craft so many times, that I'd be genuinely surprised if you actually _died_."

"I thought I was going to lose one of my own today. I'm not going through that ordeal again, Lucilla." Octarius said, somewhat harshly. "I swear, as you get older, the more heart attacks you two keep giving me. Why can't you be more like Hadrian, eh?"

The three Nandrakans laughed. Being together was something that only rarely happened to the four of them now, as they were always separated by their duties.

"So, we're at war again," Octarius unenthusiastically stated, after a few seconds of walking in silence. "You've been out there during first contact with the 314s, what do you think of them, Lina?"

"They're very dangerous, more so than krogan, even." The admiral responded. "You can't use the established turian doctrine when trying to deal with them up in space. You'd only quicken your own fleet's demise."

"Then what do you suggest we do to fend them off?" It was Lucilla's turn to ask.

Lina was silent for several seconds. Indeed, all tricks in the book would only be counterproductive in the long run. If an admiral used the Resolute Fortress doctrine, he'd find his fleet ribboned to pieces because his advance is too slow, too cautious and too defensive. On the other hand, if an admiral would order his fleet assume the Stalwart Predator doctrine, his vessels would spend too much time advancing to optimal firing positions to properly mount an attack, essentially giving the alien fleet a free shooting range to practice their gunnery skills on. If an admiral would decide to stick to tradition and doctrine, then the best course of action would be to take up the Unyielding Colossus principle, which essentially turns each and every cruiser and dreadnought into stationary fortresses of mass accelerator cannons and photon torpedoes, with frigates and other smaller ships acting as flankers or additional fire support. And even then, the vastly superior firepower fielded by the alien fleet would send this principle crumbling down on the turians before long.

"I… I honestly don't know, Lilla. I didn't expect to live longer than today, I thought I'd be leaving the planning to Palaven Command."

Octarius looked at his eldest daughter as they walked. She had just been spared from an undignified death, only to be burdened by yet another crisis. He walked closer to her. "You always know what to do. Remember that time when you were still just a rear admiral in charge of a reserve flotilla in the Terminus? The batarians had your ships ambushed; you have no idea when they're going to strike next, or where they'll decide to move their ships to. The enemy has the advantage of surprise, while your ships are desperately trying to hit something with blind fire."

"That engagement was a _pyrrhic_ one, dad." Lina resentfully reminded, remembering all the crewmen under her command that she lost that day. "We destroyed every last one of the pirates, but for every vessel of theirs destroyed, we lost four of ours. It took a monumental amount of effort to flush out the batarians from where they're hiding. That day has been a black mark on the legion's history ever since…"

It was then that the admiral caught up to what her father was going at. She looked at Octarius and found him smirking deviously at her.

Lina shook her head and shared her father's smile. _Oh, you brainy old bastard._

…

As they walked to Lina's destination, the admiral noticed Hadrian being his cold, aloof self. He hasn't uttered anything since reporting to Primarch Valerius several hours ago.

"Hadrian, is there something wrong?" Lina cautiously asked. She wasn't expecting her brother to flinch at her mention of his name. Indeed, something must be troubling him.

"I'm fine," The captain told his sister, somewhat unconvincingly. "I was just remembering someone I used to know."

"Erm, Lina?" Lucilla tapped the admiral's shoulder to get her attention. "Do you remember Lieutenant Petronia, the commando?"

"Why, yes." Lina knew about her brother's liason with the asari unit his own unit was assigned to cooperate with. She frequently visited the Nandrakan manor to deliver reports straight to Hadrian when they're off-duty. The admiral knew that Hadrian's bond with Petronia was like that of brother and sister. "Nothing bad happened to her, I trust?"

"Well, she was redeployed twelve days ago to another section of the Terminus to undermine a crime lord's operations." Lucilla looked at Hadrian, asking him for prompt if she should continue. The captain only nodded solemnly. "Petronia's whole unit was exterminated to the last after a botched-up recon assignment. You wouldn't want to know what happened to their remains."

"I'm sorry I asked, then." Lina told her brother. Maybe Petronia's death is the reason for his behavior towards her earlier, at her own execution. He must've been just as devastated as the rest of the Nandrakan family at her imminent demise.

"Just don't mention it again." Hadrian austerely demanded. "She saved my life more times than I could readily count. She didn't deserve to die like she did. Not one of them did."

The rest of the walk to the briefing room was eerily silent. The Nandrakans kept their thoughts to themselves. When the four turians reached their destination, Primarch Corvinius himself welcomed them behind a partially open door.

"There you are. The meeting's already started without you ten minutes ago. If you've been—"

Lina cut him off. "Let's just get in there and get it done, Valerius. I still haven't caught up on with my sleep, you know."

Valerius stiffened before composing himself. "As you wish… but Colonel Octarius and Captain Hadrian need to stay outside; this is strictly a non-marine, shipmaster-exclusive meeting. I'm already stretching my powers short just being here."

"Then just _why_ are you here?" Lina countered.

The primarch faked his offended look, which was betrayed by the wry smile creeping up to his face. "Why, I'm taking your advice, of course. I can't do much without knowing anything about what I needed to do. Now, if you don't have any other concerns, we must be on our way." He nodded at the Nandrakans before promptly disappearing behind the door he was holding open.

Lina spared one last look at Hadrian and Octarius before heading in with his younger sister.

…

_**The Deserter's Post – The Briefing Room**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 1420 hours**_

_**Grand Admiral Tacitus Drenarius**_

"We need to change our strategies and tactics. Did you see the footage Nandrakan's men just showed us? The damned savages just broke through our lines and massacred our soldiers!"

"Our tactics are fine, we just need a technological edge. Have you seen how they seem to just charge forwards with reckless abandon? They're just like the krogan, just with a little more subtlety and with energy weapons thrown in with the mix. Surely, if we possessed the same weapons tech they do, we'd kick their armored asses anytime."

"They might seem like that to you, but I can assure you, they _do_ have the same tactical acumen we're so known for. They recognize our weakness, and that's the way we make war. They knew they have a massive technological advantage, and they also noticed that we tend to take combat much more defensive-oriented than other races in the galaxy do. Naturally, they'd exploit this by charging headlong into battle, taking away most of our advantages and obliterating all chances of us ever mounting an effective counter-attack."

"I can't believe you people are still arguing about how do we defeat them in land-based engagements. We're in the spacefight branch, by the Spirits' grace! You should leave those problems for the marines to figure out, it's not in our league! Have you seen how their ship-mounted guns took out some of our dreadnoughts with seemingly little difficulty? It was by Admiral Galvocius' sacrifice that most of his fleet even managed to fall back to a safe position! And have you forgotten about the disturbing reports of an advanced, anti-dreadnought stealth ship lurking about within their fleet's ranks? It could be up in Digeris' orbit, spying on us for all we know!"

Grand Admiral Tacitus watched his subordinates bicker and argue amongst each other. They have been this way for several hours now, and yet, they show no signs of actually coming up with a valid strategy to deal with the new alien threat. Tacitus had been in the business of war for more than a century now, he knew that if he only had the pleasure of facing the alien fleet in an actual spaceborne engagement, then he might've dismissed everyone in the briefing room after coming up with a plan all by himself. Right now, he just cradled his head as he watched the younger officers trade meaningless words and veiled insults with each other.

"May I please have everybody's attention? I think I've got a solution for our crisis."

Tacitus lazily craned his head to look at whom the sudden voice belonged.

_Brilliant, it's the infamous Aureliana Nandrakan_. Still, whatever the grand admiral's feelings for the pardoned admiral might be, he can't deny that she was wrongly sentenced just to silence the general turian public that cried out for 'justice'.

Of course, everyone immediately dismissed Nandrakan to go about their pointless bickering once more. Tacitus had to act.

Raising a shaky, gaunt hand from his seat up in the air, every last one of the officers immediately noticed and fell silent. "Let's hear what the good admiral has to say." The grand admiral said.

"And why do we have to? She's the one who led the Draius Ferlodinus Legion to disaster, as everyone here should recall!" A brash, vociferous vice admiral cried out. "I can't even fathom why that foolish primarch pardoned her – she's a waste of Spirits-damned oxygen and space! We don't need her unserviceable 'solutions' clogging up our war effort any further."

"I'm right here, rear admiral. I suggest you sit down and keep your little mandibles bolted to your mouth from now on, lest you find yourself demoted _even further_." Primarch Corvinius drew gasps hushed murmurs from the officers when he revealed himself, seated on one of the seats at the easternmost end of the room. Tacitus snickered at his little display of theatrics, although he knew that the primarch couldn't actually demote naval officers. "The rest of you would do well to listen to what Lina has to say."

Lucilla, who was seated right next to the primarch, gave Corvinius an appreciative punch to his arm. The primarch winced, but he didn't object to the flight lieutenant's brazen attitude.

With reluctance, everyone turned their heads to Admiral Nandrakan, who was looking every bit as smug as she could.

"Thank you, grand admiral. And you as well, primarch." She breathed in a lungful of air before continuing, "We all know that we can't make use of all of our established doctrines to successfully mount an offensive against the 314s; their hull-mounted weapons are powerful enough to vaporize cruisers with embarrassingly few shots to the hull, and their range is just plain ridiculous. However, I do know that most of their vessels are colossal – most of their cruisers are easily the size of a Dominem-class cruiser combined with the length a Demetrius-class frigate, and don't even get me started on the dreadnoughts."

"What we do is we use their size to our advantage." Nandrakan stated. "Being floating metal fortresses the size of towns, their vessels are slow and sluggish. They should take several excruciating moments just to turn their ships around to engage flankers. Using dreadnoughts against them would prove less-than-useful, as any dreadnought makes for an easy target, and being hit by enemy directed energy weapons fire is something that almost constitutes death when engaging these bastards, especially if the shot penetrates the hull and ruptures the eezo core. We need to mobilize every Zyridomos-class cruiser or Calcarius-class frigate we have, reduce their armored plating down to the bare essentials for better mobility, and give them guns that could make dreadnought operators paint their vessels green in envy. As for our methods, I'm sure everyone in this room is familiar with how batarians attacked our own peacekeeping fleets. We're not the superior military force this time, gentlemen. Let us behave like the batarians do: hit the superior enemy force in one spot with overwhelming might, before disappearing into the void long before they could even so much as retaliate."

_Of course… this plan might just work…_ Tacitus thought. Looking around, he knew that every officer thought the same as he did. _Then again, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Regrettably, this is all we have._

"I deem Admiral Nandrakan's plan as our new doctrine whilst we deal with this crisis." The grand admiral declared. "That is, until we find a better one."

"I'm with Grand Admiral Drenarius." Primarch Corvinius joined in. "Admiral Nandrakan is the only one in this room who saw the enemy's capabilities and tactics first-hand. It's well known that the Nandrakans are adept at adapting to their situations."

Slowly, little by little, every other captain, commodore, rear admiral, vice admiral and admiral voiced their approval, even with some doing so with a thick layer of consternation and reluctance. Tacitus chuckled. _This just might work indeed._

…

_**VALHALLAN THRESHOLD/MICAH SYSTEM**_

_**MFLS Nedar-Falkana – in orbit of Kakabel**_

_**July 07th, 2157 – 1510 hours**_

_**Admiral Rael'Zorah vas Nedar-Falkana nar Rayya – Quarian Admiralty Board member**_

"Nearly done, admiral. My estimations are… seventeen hours, at the least. You'll have my full report shortly."

Admiral Zorah reclined on his command seat. "Make that ten hours, captain. Get as much eezo as you can before heading back. We can't stay here for much longer."

"As you wish it, sir." The captain cut comms. Immediately, the quarian admiral opened a new comms channel to Admiral Han'Gerrel.

"Gerrel, how did the scouts fare? What did they find?"

Before answering, Gerrel issued one last order to a subordinate before responding to Rael proper. "You would not believe what my observers found out at the Olympus System, in the Triton Cluster." He said. From the tone of his voice, he seems quite enthusiastic about something, which is unusual for him. "I'll give you a hint – it involves a Hierarchy-controlled planet."

Rael knew full well of the suspicious concentration of turian military forces gathered planetside and in orbit of the planet called Drekplaats. Drekplaats used to be just another planet that appeared to be capable of sustaining life. A decade ago, it used to be quite empty, with no parties coming to claim possession of the planet for colonization. Now, for some strange reason, the turians seemed to take a sudden, unexpectedly inordinate amount of interest in the garden world, after a turian probe did a thorough scan on the planet's surface. Their obsession has gotten so bad, that they even assigned a medium-sized military contingent to the planet with the sole purpose of guarding it from _everyone_. Gerrel's agents sometimes skirted through the planet, either to pass through, or more frequently, to spy. Nobody but Hierarchy-approved parties are even permitted to enter the Olympus System, but with quarians not being part of the Council, Gerrel would be naturally sending a few scouts to check the area out.

"Let me guess – the turians have suddenly grown consciences and have decided to hand us a planet and colonization rights for free?" Rael derisively replied. Although, if the scenario _did_ happen, Rael would gleefully buy the first turian he came across a round of drinks of his or her choice. He'd even go as far as name his second offspring after the current primarch, if he was asked to.

"I'm afraid not, old friend. But I've got the next best thing," Gerrel never lost his excitement as he responded back. "The damned spikeheads have been wiped out."

That statement from Gerrel had all the subtlety of an accelerating mag-train. Rael had to bite back a chuckle. "Your scouts must've done some pretty impressive maneuvering to overpower a whole Hierarchy defense fleet. But in all seriousness, what really happened out there, Han?"

"I'm not mucking about, Rael. My scouts quietly observed as an unknown alien flotilla gave the turian fleet a sound trashing before proceeding to occupy the planet they were previously guarding. What's stranger still is that the aliens used a massive vessel the size of the three of our city-ships put together as a platform for tens of thousands of fighter craft. This vessel alone took down the turian spaceborne defense screen. What's more, virtually all ships these aliens possessed were _not_ equipped with mass accelerator cannons, photon torpedoes or the like. They have energy weapons, Rael."

Rael knew that Gerrel rarely lied. He only gave the occasional jest every now and then, and even then, only when he was in the mood. Still, even if what his old friend said was true, why was he even excited in the first place? Surely a military force advanced enough to possess such technologies as ship-mounted DEWs and powerful enough to wipe out a turian garrison would also mean that they'd have to be formidable enough to leave major dents in the Migrant Fleet's population if they were inclined to do so. _They might even be powerful enough to take on the whole quarian navy and come out on top_, Rael thought.

"The newcomers didn't take major damage, but they took damage all the same." Gerrel continued. Suddenly, his tone took a dangerous, predatory tone. "The aliens are presently too occupied with their new planet, and most of their spaceborne forces have just withdrawn to Ancestors-know-where. To make a long story short, the wrecks they made, both turian and of their own, are left floating in the void, unattended and ripe for the taking."

Immediately, Rael knew what Gerrel was so thrilled about. It was no secret that quarians were adept at salvaging technology, as they were always on the move, having to make do with what little resources they have at hand. Gerrel thought that if the quarian people had access to these newcomers' ship-based tech, then the long-awaited dream of clearing the sacred homeworld of the wretched geth couldn't be that far away.

Rael felt an unabashed smile creeping up to his face behind the faceplate he wore. _By the Ancestors, it might be even achieved in a few years – just in time to settle down with Nuriel, and our future children._

Most unfortunately, it wasn't the time, or the place. Rael knew very little of these aliens to be confident of the odds if he gave the order to Gerrel to begin salvaging operations. If Gerrel's less-than-honorable activities were discovered, the quarian people would most likely find itself another enemy to watch out for.

"Gerrel, I need you to tell your men to pull back. We aren't getting involved in this for now. Leave the wrecks be."

As was expected, the admiral immediately protested. "What?! Imagine the possibilities of the tech that could be gained, Rael! We'll wipe the geth clean from this galaxy, and we'll get Rannoch back!"

Rael wasn't having any of it. "Is that you, Han? You sound a lot like Xen right now, you know."

"I heard somebody mentioned my name." Admiral Darro'Xen's voice registered on the comms, much to Rael's annoyance; he was getting tired of all the 'upgrades' she was getting around to installing all over the Fleet's communications arrays. She had been the aging Admiral Shiran's replacement, and the newest addition to the Admiralty Board.

"It was just a mention, Xen. I'm just having a _private_ conversation with Admiral Han. Would you please leave this channel?" Rael requested, but it sounded more like an order.

"You might be conspiring against me, for all I know. I'd really rather not." Came the (expected) snide reply from Xen.

"You just_ had_ to mention her name, Zorah." Gerrel annoyed Rael even further. "Who's next, Koris and Raan?"

"I noticed that we're having an unscheduled Admiralty Board meeting over the comms," Even if he was just as close to her as he was with Gerrel, Rael couldn't help but run a three-fingered hand over his visor upon hearing Admiral Shala'Raan's voice. "I hope I haven't missed anything. So, what are we discussing?"

"Oh, nothing." Gerrel said to Raan. "We were just discussing plans to liberate Rannoch from the ge—"

"I knew it! Gerrel, how many times do we have to discuss this?" And the circle came to a close. The whole Quarian Admiralty Board is present with Admiral Zaal'Koris' addition. Rael had pegged the young admiral as a geth sympathizer from the start, but it was already too late. He was made a member of the Board before he could do anything. "We already have dwindling supplies and we're reduced to scavenging eezo from asteroids just so we could use our drive cores to travel. If we attacked the geth, we'd risk extinction!"

Before any large-scale bickering could start, Rael was already in action. "Alright, listen up! Our situation might turn out for better or worse with the next action our fleet could take. In the Olympus System, in the Triton Cluster, there's a planet called…"

…

_**HEILONG CLUSTER/SHANXI-THETA SYSTEM**_

_**The Admiral's Office, FNWS Annihilation – In orbit of A-class asteroid '29844823CP-92834AOP'**_

_**July 08th, 2157 – 0900 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Norman Draynor – newly promoted leader of the Federal Navy forces in the Heilong Cluster**_

"Are you satisfied with what you found yesterday, Admiral Tresdin?"

Instead of responding, the alien only glared at Draynor with those beady, greenish-blue eyes of his. _The corpse must've been someone important to him,_ Draynor observed. _I've got to watch where I tread._

"I'm sorry for bringing it up. He must've been significant to you." He said, to lighten the tension.

"His name is Avitus," Tresdin bitterly muttered, his dual-tone voice nearly drowning out his words. "And he was my son."

_Dammit, Norman. _Draynor chastised himself further. "Ah, so I see."

The fleet admiral had just gone through the shock of receiving an unexpected field promotion from Federation HICOM – as an elevation from an already high spot in the navy as an admiral to fleet admiral is normally nigh impossible, even in wartime. HICOM reasoned that repulsing two consecutive alien invasions with minimal help (although, Draynor wouldn't call the amount of assistance he had as 'minimal') warranted his advancement to his current rank – the very first one since 2062, no less.

Presently, he's going through another shock as he perceived the similarities between his species and the other one his own was currently engaged in a war with. Through the science team's observations, they determined that these 'turians' weren't anything like the clones the ethereals used as footsoldiers to spearhead their advance on Earth. When mutons, sectoids or floaters were 'interrogated' after being captured, every one of them was very much wholly identical to one another. They were unthinking, extremely loyal warrior-slaves to their ethereal masters, existing exactly for the sole purpose of being pawns to the grand design the ethereals had planned out for humans.

On the other hand, at the very start of their relationship with humans, the turians displayed traits that set them distinctly apart from the other alien forces that had previously tried their hand on taking on the human race. Instead of being replicated, mindless soldiers bred to serve unquestioningly like ethereal forces are, or being planetary looters seeking to deprive Earth of all its resources after enslaving the local population like the zudjari race, these turians seemed to be more or less just following orders.

"So… what do you think about the Federation Navy's flagship?" Draynor attempted to restart the conversation he was having. He noticed that some of the soldiers assigned to protect his person shifted on their positions at the other corner of his office. They must've been cringing in their armor at Draynor's choice of words.

Tresdin shook his head, as if he was willing his previous thoughts away. "It is a powerful vessel, Admiral Draynor. The most powerful one I've ever seen, in fact. You are in charge of it, yes?" He asked. From the way he talked, he seemed glad at the change of subjects.

"Why, of course. I was appointed to take charge of the _Annihilation_ by Venerable Admiral Lebedev himself." Draynor haughtily answered.

The alien leaned his head closer to the admiral, questioning him with an inquisitive glare. His earlier glumness already replaced by curiosity. "And why is that?"

Draynor folded his hands over his chest. "I've never lost an engagement against EXALT flotillas, dissenter forces, pirate syndicates, and as of now, _turian fleets_." He bluntly stated, in a way that sounded a little bit like a boast. "I know every trick in the book when it comes to ship-to-ship warfare, and it's clear that my superiors knew precisely that_._"

The fleet admiral slightly frowned when Tresdin gave out a rumbling, patronizing laugh at his expense. "By your actions on the battlefield, I'd say that you're a little wet behind the ears for someone of your rank." The slight frown on Draynor's face deepened when he heard the alien use a human idiom – something he must've picked up as he listened to XCOM agents and Federal soldiers argue. _He learns fast._

Tresdin restrained himself shortly. "Spirits, if we only had the technological edge your fleet enjoyed. It wouldn't be a contest; your fleet would be in ruins, with the turian banner flying high over your pathetic little colony's capital city."

"My race has been a spacefaring one for a century and a half now." Draynor declared, believing the fact to be significant.

"And mine had been crossing the stars for millennia…!" Suddenly, Tresdin stopped mid-shout, as he comprehended Draynor's statement. "…You're serious." It sounded like a statement more than anything.

Draynor rolled his eyes, "I am. Since the Federation Navy's inception, the worst threats we ever faced were washed-up terrorists, petty criminals and disgruntled homesteaders, so you can excuse us for being 'inexperienced'. As you are aware, those three groups aren't really that hard to take down when you've got a fusion lance the length of three skyscrapers at your disposal – the worst they can point at us are a couple of salvaged Canaries."

It was Tresdin's turn to frown, lowering his mandibles and hiding his pointed teeth from sight. It looked curiously strange compared to a human's, as Draynor observed. "That's impossible, admiral. The turians were already colonizing planets and researching new tech thousands of years ago, and we still haven't come close to developing your race's technology. Tell me, have you… 'humans', been uplifted by some other alien race? Your allies, perhaps?"

The question from the turian drove Draynor into a laughing fit that lasted for several seconds. Tresdin looked around the human's office and found that the guards were also snickering for some reason.

"Not allies – not by a longshot, but yes, you _could_ say that we were 'uplifted'. Though, it didn't end well for our uplifters in the end." Draynor said, after wiping a non-existent tear from his eye.

"What do you mean?" Tresdin asked, seeming hesitant.

"Well, let's just say that we've already had two alien races that tried to conquer our homeworld," The fleet admiral smirked as he saw the turian's eyes widen in incredulous disbelief. He pressed onwards, "They always had the technological and military advantage against us each time. The first time wasn't really widespread, and was dealt with quickly. The second one threatened to drive humans to extinction, but we fought them off as well in the end. Do you want to know how?" Draynor implored.

"You stole their tech…" Tresdin muttered.

"Guilty as charged." Draynor confirmed. "And not 'just' tech either. Have you seen one of our psi-operatives, yet? We have this thing called 'psionics', too."

"The over-elaborate display of biotics that some of your men possessed? Yes, I've seen them." The turian answered. "I find it strange that your biotics can't seem to move objects around; they only influenced a person's mental faculties, and nothing more. The asari would love to know how your biotics work."

Draynor sat on his seat with a blank look on his face. The alien in front of him was saying all kinds of words that his translator couldn't decipher for him. "I thought the term 'biotic' meant something relating to living organisms, not psionics. And what's an 'asari'?"

Tresdin smirked, baring his teeth once more and narrowing his mandibles down slightly. But his expression was lost on the human. "I'd rather keep the biotics part to myself. You'll learn how they work soon enough. As for the asari, they're another alien race that happened to be allied to the Turian Hierarchy, along with the Salarian Union. I have a feeling that you'll see them soon in the future."

The fleet admiral stiffened. _There are more alien races out there? This might be bad_. "You know, I could just send you off to an interrogation chamber, jam your head full of tubes and inject it with a really nasty type of mind-eating nanites. I'm sure Dr. Kobayashi would just _love_ to sap the information out of you just for the kicks, but you see, trying to do just that doesn't seem to yield _enough_ information to us anymore. It's as if your species are naturally resistant to our… techniques. Hell, even the psi-ops are having trouble getting what they needed from your heads."

"Every turian is trained and conditioned to withstand being on the receiving end of torture, even the citizens." Tresdin nonchalantly stated. "We won't give up what we know so easily."

Draynor scoffed. "We have ways of making aliens talk. You're just more resilient to our usual methods. If our more unethical allies got their hands on you, you'll be begging me to take you back within a week."

Tresdin, every bit as bored as a grunt in a primarch's military funeral, finally decided that the conversation he was having must come to an end. "Alright Draynor, we've talked enough. Surely you didn't order your men to pull the enemy admiral up your office just to have a chat with him. Why am I up here?"

The fleet admiral sighed. "Right… since you turians are too stubborn to save everyone the trouble and tell us what you know, I'm afraid I'll just have to resort to _asking you politely_."

The turian's mandibles scrunched up as his eyes narrowed. "What are you playing at, human?"

In response, Draynor opened a drawer from his desk and fished out a holoprint. He brusquely set it down on his desk for his alien counterpart to see.

When Tresdin flipped the holoprint over to his side, he involuntarily shuddered in the jolt of terror he felt shooting up his spine. It was an illustration of a certain space station – an inaccurate and warped depiction of it, but it was recognizable nonetheless.

Draynor heard him mutter something out, but he couldn't make his words out, so he took it in stride for now.

"One of our associates from a certain agency told us about some sort of… hub, for aliens like you, after having her way with an admiral called Sorex." He informed, as smug as he could, knowing that he has the upper hand. Tresdin flinched at the mention of the deceased Admiral Sorex. "She couldn't get precise details about this station… but she knew enough to know its place in the galaxy."

Draynor smirked as Tresdin's form stiffened on his seat as if he was subdued by a paralytic agent. "You're gonna tell us what's in that station, and when you do, we'll offer you your return back to turian hands, your men inclu—"

"No." The alien abruptly said, cutting off the fleet admiral. "This conversation is over, human. Torture me all you want, I'm not telling you anything about that station. My men would gladly do the same, if they're in my position."

The fleet admiral was afraid that something like this would happen. Nevertheless, he got the reaction he needed. _If he acted like this, something important must be on that station._ He thought.

"We won't be wasting any more of our time doing that. Sergeant, take Admiral Tresdin back to his cell."

The turian admiral was promptly snatched off his seat and escorted out of Draynor's office. Tresdin managed a few words before he was hauled off,

"You can't send your fleets to attack the station, Draynor. You won't get within a fifty thousand kilometers of it before your ships would be reduced to molten scrap."

"Did I say we're going to attack the space station? Oh no, Tresdin. We wouldn't _dream_ of such a thing!" Draynor sarcastically declared, casually fetching a cigarette from a case sitting on his desk. "We're just going to drop by a few of our... representatives. _Then _we'll see if it's a target worth terminating."

With that said, the fleet admiral watched as his turian counterpart was dragged off from his office, smiling as he ignited the cylinder of finely cut tobacco perched on his mouth with his cybernetic forefinger's built-in lighter.

…

_**LOCAL CLUSTER/SOL SYSTEM/IN ORBIT OF EARTH**_

_**Schultz Base, XCOM Main – Sea of Tranquillity, the Moon**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1000 hours**_

_**Director Faust/Central Officer Netanya Deckardson – Director Faust's second-in-command**_

"_Fringe world uprising in progress in… Federova, northern and eastern hemisphere."_ A synthesized feminine voice reported.

Director Faust was at this point, grinding his teeth together. _We're the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit…_ "Send in two surgical strike platoons, tell them to regroup with the main Federal relief force and take charge – say the collective passcode in the unlikely case that the Feds don't cooperate."

_Understood, commander. Platoons Krieger and Pedersen are en route to… Federova._

Faust sighed. He reclined on his command seat and tried to reach for a vial of his half-monthly Meld dose. _We're supposed to fight _extraterrestrial_ threats, not domestic ones._

Weeks ago, when everything was still fine and dandy, XCOM was quite possibly the idlest government-sanctioned paramilitary organization in all of the Federation's secret military circles. Months would go by without any noteworthy activity, and in the case of 2147 and 2152, the whole year. XCOM agents could only keep their skills sharp by assisting the Federal military against the occasional EXALT attack, or by the virtual reality simulations they subject themselves into at least once every day. However, since the appearance of a hostile alien race, the fringe world colonies are now starting to use the chaos brought on by the sudden turn of events as an opportunity to voice their opinions on the current human government – violently most often.

Faust couldn't see why the colonists needed to dissent. He guessed that it's because the Federation government had been taxing them so much – only for their credits to be thrown into the government's military budget, because President Lazarenko is so obsessed with trying to prepare his race for a seemingly non-existent third alien incursion on human soil… much like nearly all of his predecessors before him. Now that aliens are in their midst, the colonists should be less bitter about their predicament to see that preparing for war has been the right choice all along. Unfortunately, they're too blinded by the palpable prospect of severing any sort of ties from the human government in order to become independent.

_Selfish, opportunistic bastards, they are,_ Faust bitterly thought. _They'll change their minds eventually. Nobody can be this short-sighted when the threat of an alien invasion stands right in our doorstep._

"_Fringe world uprising in progress in… New Pripyat – XCOM New Pripyat is currently operating to restore order with local Federalist forces."_

The director stopped his arm from reaching the vial, sank on his seat and continued grinding his teeth. It was one of his ways to let go of anxiety.

"Tell our forces to hold positions. Let the main administrative force take the center stage; only attack when the time is right. Also, send a single company as their back-up force."

"_Understood, commander. Savona Company is on the way to… XCOM New Pripyat, New Pripyat."_

Faust grumbled. _I've got to tell Shevchenko to fix this goddamn machine's voice. It hasn't changed a single note since 2011._

"_Fringe world uprising in progress in… Hennessey, eastern hemisphere. Core world uprising predicted in… Magnusson, Watson."_

"Send in a platoon. Don't engage until the Federation Navy arrives. As for Watson, send in a dozen field agents – tell them to find the root of the predicted uprising and crush it. The Federation should handle any witnesses, so they don't need to worry about making a mess. Besides, Watson's been housing a derelict EXALT cell."

"_Understood, commander. Platoon Raskop is inbound to… Hennessey. Unit 72 will rendezvous in… Magnusson, Watson."_

"And tell Blue Crown to pull some of his men back," Faust managed to remember how his forces in Drekplaats seemed a tad bit overkill for the alien garrison. "I need at least half of the Hellstriders and a thousand agents reallocated to better defensive positions. Lord knows that they've already got that place buttoned up tighter than that fishing village in Newfoundland."

"_Understood, commander. Reallocation orders sent to… error: token not found. New name assigned: 'Drekplaats'."_

"Director, we've just received word from Fleet Admiral Draynor," It was then that Deckardson decided to make her presence known. "He says he'll follow through with your plan of attack, as long as we could pull through with our objectives."

Deckardson watched as her superior officer stiffened on his seat before whirling around to regard her. "Ah, yes. The alien space station. Is von Rosshart in position, then?"

"Hmm…" Deckardson brought up her omni-tool. "In a few minutes, sir. I'm sure it's just a momentary delay."

The director put a gloved hand over his stubbled chin. "When you contact him again, remind him to use one of the clones as… uh,"

"An inside man." Deckardson finished for Faust. "As an advanced recon unit."

Faust rolled his one good eye. "Right you are."

…

_**KROGAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE/ARALAKH SYSTEM**_

_**XSF Journeyman – Knowlton-class special operations frigate, in stealthed orbit of Tuchanka**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1000 hours**_

_**Master Field Agent Gerhardt 'Windhund' von Rosshart, in charge of XCOM's land-based forces in Operation: Subversion – Detachment AF:172**_

Whenever XCOM needed an objective infiltrated and scouted thoroughly before a whirlwind attack, the current director may send a small flotilla of special operations vessels – essentially six extremely versatile frigates equipped with heavy-duty cloaking modules similar to what the Old One is equipped with. Today, each of those six vessels housed company-sized units of specialized, highly trained and unquestionably loyal breed of thin men, cloned and genetically modified to look like turian soldiers in every conceivable way. Neural inhibitors, some genetic tweaks and a steady dose of aggression suppressants keep these former ethereal infiltrators in line, obeying every order they were issued with dog-like steadfastness and unemotional composure, usually coupled with exceptionally lethal efficiency.

Of a current note, the AF:172 detachment is tasked with infiltrating X-Ray-Sierra One, which was the space station the turians are so obsessed with keeping their mouths shut about, in preparation for a massive joint Federation/XCOM Navy invasion if the station proved to be a valuable target for capture or destruction. However, instead of being straightforward with their objectives, the man in charge of the lead frigate, a heavily augmented, highly trained… and eternally inquisitive agent called Gerhardt, was side-tracked by the severely nuked-out planet his flotilla passed by – UW-394721, a planet of unknown structure and build, discovered by Swedish astrophysicists in the late 2020s.

"Very interesting." Gerhardt mused to himself as he viewed Tuchanka with a long-range scanner. "It seems that this planet's inhabited not too long ago."

"Yes, quite." Senior Field Agent Vogel agreed, taking his place next to his commander. "But this isn't what we came here for, sir. We'd best keep moving to our objectives, the Fed Navy's waiting for us to pull this off."

Gerhardt waved a dismissive metallic hand to Vogel. "We'll get to that soon enough, my friend. For now, send down some of our drones; see if there's something valuable we could salvage from the planet below."

Vogel closed his eyes, to spare Gerhardt from seeing them roll. "At once, sir. After that, what then?"

Gerhardt turned his back on the scanner, walking back towards his quarters. "Have the flotilla return to our original course to XS-1. We'll get our mission over with, Dr. Garamond wants us to field-test the new augs he requisitioned for us." The master field agent displayed his right hand and removed the glove covering it, revealing a cybernetic prosthesis. Seconds later, small electrical arcs crackled and sizzled to life at the metal hand's fingertips, dancing around the digits in a manner that could almost be described as playful.

"And where did Dr. Garamond get the inspiration for that?" Vogel asked, feigning interest.

Gerhardt shrugged. "A giant electric eel from the Sylvain Ocean, in Rashad. I could either make tiny sparks with a snap of my fingers to keep the novices amused… or I could do this," With that said, the electrical sparks radiating from Gerhardt's metal hand formed into a miniature lightning storm, drawing everybody's attention to their commander's fascinating, yet terrifying demonstration of the Garamond-Sergey biomechanical augmentation.

With a whimsical, pearly-white grin on his face, Gerhardt muttered, "Five hundred and sixty milliamps at the lowest setting. Imagine the possibilities…"

…

_**SERPENT NEBULA/WIDOW**_

_**Docking Bay L-91, The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1400 hours**_

_**Lieutenant Investigator Tertius Vakarian – Potential candidate for executor position**_

It's just another day at Docking Bay L-91, one of the busiest docking bays reserved for commercial craft. Several shuttles and civilian craft flew forwards and backwards, their occupants either on business, or trying to leave just after doing business. L-91 is deliberately separated from other docking bays and other civilian buildings, and the path from it leads directly to the Citadel's market hub, where people of all Council races manned their shops and did their dealings in the name of the almighty credit.

Still, Investigator Tertius couldn't help but investigate the docking bay in person after receiving disturbing reports of strange, unmarked shuttles positioning and concealing themselves amongst civilian craft, often disembarking several turians sporting dark-tinted visors and formalshells thereafter. What's worse, some keen-eyed civvies noticed that the shuttles looked like military craft that were hastily retrofitted to look like they belong to random civilians.

"This is the place," The investigator muttered to the men accompanying him. "Keep on the look-out for any unmarked civilian craft – the ones without paint. If you see anyone of our kind that looked out-of-place, report them to me."

"May I ask why, sir?" One of the younger officers carefully asked. "And how do we know if they looked 'out-of-place'?"

Tertius frowned. This one must've slept his way through his briefing earlier. "Because they might be the suspects we're looking for. You'll know them when you see them; as they're usually wearing navy-blue formalshells and murky visors over their eyes."

The officers nodded in understanding before dispersing in pairs. Tertius himself took off with his sergeant, a thin, lanky figure named Livius, the new replacement for the lieutenant investigator's corrupt former second-in-command.

"You look a little bit… _different_, since the last time we met, sergeant." Tertius observed as the two officers walked. "You seem a bit leaner. Looking taller, too."

Livius made a coarse, unsettling cough. "The weeks weren't kind to me, sir. I had no way to support my family before I signed up." The sergeant's voice is raspy and grating – not dissimilar to that of a drell's.

"Well, you sound a bit different, as well." Tertius added. "But don't worry about getting credits. C-Sec takes care of its own, as long as they stick by the rules and avoid breaking the law."

The two turians walked and investigated the distance of the entire docking bay, but the shuttles were now nowhere in sight. It seemed that whatever their owners wanted was already fulfilled, and the shuttle drivers promptly fled the space station. However, the goal of locating at least one member of the suspected turian group was still active.

"Nothing yet, Sir Vakarian," One of the lieutenant investigator's subordinates reported over the comms. "All the vehicles docked were all searched, scanned and tagged. We found nothing suspicious."

"Keep going at it," Tertius reported back. "You could never tell when something important crops up. Report to me when that happens. Vakarian out."

Tertius turned to his partner, who looked like he was looking around everywhere for the suspects. "I wish some of my men had your drive."

Livius turned his helmeted head to his superior. "Excuse me, sir?"

Tertius shook his head. "Never mind that. You said you were having financial difficulties earlier. How bad was it?"

The sergeant hesitated, as if he was unprepared for Tertius' question. "I— my family is down on one of the colonies. They're not doing so well because they worked as agri-farmers, and there was a very recent blight that destroyed most of their crops."

The lieutenant investigator narrowed his eyes. "On the application form you sent me over the extranet last month, you told me your family lived here. Why did they move out?"

"Err— well, life here in the space station's getting quite crowded. They needed the extra space provided by settling down in a colony." Livius uncertainly answered.

"Right." Tertius slowly nodded. He seemed deep in thought about his new second-in-command as he leaned on a wall, his arms crossed and his mandibles rigid.

The lieutenant investigator was about to tell Livius to continue their patrol, when he spotted a peculiar turian in a navy-blue, ritzy formalshell, with a visor over his eyes – and with no facial markings whatsoever. _Barefaced,_ Tertius thought.

The turian was just outside the perimeter of a C-Sec outpost. From the looks of things, he seemed to be looking the outpost over – studying and examining it. In an instant, Tertius was already on the comms. "All units, this is Vakarian. A possible suspect just turned up just outside Outpost Four. I repeat, a suspect is standing twenty meters to the south of Four's entrance."

Before Livius could register what's going on, the investigator already broke off into a sprint. "Hey! You there, in the blue formalshell!" He shouted, "This is C-Sec, stand right where you are!"

The turian quickly stood in attention. He seemed to panic before attempting to run from Tertius. However, with the head start that Tertius received combined with the element of surprise, he was able to cross the distance between himself and the suspect turian. Tertius, who was much broader and bulkier than the turian he was after, had no problem tackling the suspect to the ground, putting him in a restrained position and holding him down on the floor with just his bare hands.

"Don't try to run," Through gritted teeth, Tertius spoke. "It'll only make things worse for you."

The lieutenant investigator reached for his omni-tool to call his men to come to his position, when the turian he pinned underneath him unexpectedly slid away from his grasp with unnatural flexibility. Tertius dropped his omni-tool, and in one swift motion, backhanded the suspect turian across the face, knocking away his visor to the floor.

To his surprise, the turian didn't get swept off his feet and merely recoiled. He then looked at the bewildered lieutenant investigator in the eyes. It was then that Tertius realized that the 'turian' was truly not one of his kind.

With unnatural reptilian irises and small, subtle scales all over his face, the creature probably looked as turian as he could be, if only his eyes and the scales were hidden. However, after a split-second, the turian's mandibles folded themselves over to the side, revealing an inner maw hidden inside his mouth, filled to the brim with jagged, razor-sharp teeth and oozing with disgusting saliva-like, snot-colored liquids. Fighting back the urge to faint due to the sheer noxiousness of the scent that assaulted his nostrils, Tertius grimaced as the creature emitted a repulsive gurgling screech.

Whatever the turian-like creature was trying to attempt, Tertius wouldn't let it. He quickly struck the creature in the gut before roughly shoving it away. Acting quickly, the lieutenant investigator pulled out his pistol and fired a single shot into the staggered creature's skull, eliciting a spray of sickly green fluids from the new hole in its head.

The creature slumped down on the ground, just as a pool of its own greenish-yellow blood started forming around its head. Civilians also started to crowd around the scene, terrified at what just happened, but not terrified enough to alleviate their curiosity.

"Spirits," Tertius muttered, letting his pistol slip away from his grip. "Sergeant, I haven't seen this species before." He turned to regard Livius; "We might've gotten outselves into something big… the Citadel might be under attack. I suggest we—"

Tertius, a man who earned dozens of commendations for being prepared for everything the Wards keep throwing at him, clearly wasn't prepared for the blow to the head that came from Livius. He was thrown to the floor on his back.

The lieutenant investigator then narrowly avoided Livius' boot coming down on his head. Livius tried to go for a second try and went to stomp on Tertius' gut this time, but Tertius managed to grab hold of his foot with both hands and flung him back. Tertius stood up and picked up his pistol from the floor, training it at the sergeant, who jumped up to his feet.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, sergeant?" He shouted through ragged breaths. "Don't tell me you're one of them too?"

Livius merely tilted his head to the side. Tertius tried to approach the sergeant to restrain him, but before he could, Livius suddenly jumped to the side, his body seeming to stretch as he did. In reflex, Tertius fired his pistol, but with how erratic and fluid Livius moved, he can't seem to land a single shot. In the end, Tertius correctly predicted where Livius would jump to, and fired ahead of time, managing to score a lucky headshot to the sergeant's faceplate.

Livius collapsed to the floor, his helmet's faceplate shattered in several hundred different pieces. However, before Tertius could finish him off, the sergeant recovered quickly enough to slide off to the side, narrowly dodging another shot from the lieutenant investigator. Emitting an echoing shriek, Tertius saw the mandibles in Livius' face slide off to the side like the deceased turian-creature did.

Before Tertius could put an end to the Livius-creature, he realized that his pistol was already too overheated to fire. Quickly discarding the firearm, Tertius tried to rush forwards to his opponent to subdue him personally. But before he could do so, a cloud of noxious, yellowish-green fumes from Livius' maw struck him squarely in the face, blinding him. By the time the noxious mist dissipated and Tertius had recovered enough, Livius was already gone.

Panting and choking over the remains of the poisonous cloud still clogged in his system, Tertius brought up his omni-tool. "All units, this is—" He coughed. "T-this is Vakarian. A suspect is dead, and Sergeant Livius has gone traitor – or r-rather, he was _replaced_ by a traitor." He coughed once more, drawing a bit of blood this time. "I want everybody to set up blockades all over all the docking bay's exits and entrances, then—"

It was then that the other occupants of the commlink decided to respond back, interrupting the lieutenant investigator.

"—keep up the damned fire! Don't let—" A panicky voice shouted over the sounds of gunfire and civilians screaming in terror. "—They're breaking through! Where the hell are they coming fro—"

"I don't know, sir! They just appeared out of the crowds, charged at us and— OH FUCK!"

"—they've gone through the barricade! They've broken the Spirits-damned barricade!"

"—osition is under heavy indirect fire and… through the walls! They're shooting us through the damned walls! We need immediate—"

"My position is overrun, and my partner's dead! If anybody's hearing this, help me…" The sounds of gurgling and screeching could be heard. "HELP M—"

"Thirteen ninety-nine! Repeat, we've got a thirteen ninety—" An explosion echoed throughout the comms. "—nknown hostile contacts converging from the docking ports!" The terrifying sounds of plasma volleys could now be heard booming over the comms as the officer talked. "I repeat, hostile contacts on approach! We need _immediate_ assistance,"

The next statement the officer shouted was the stuff of nightmares – only ever uttered as either a juvenile prank on the local Citadel Security comm lines or as a stock phrase in cheap military science fiction vids.

"The Citadel is under attack!"

Tertius let his arm go limp in shock. He turned to look at the Citadel's arms over a nearby window, and found that some of the arms were emitting pillars of smoke or were noticeably on fire. The Citadel is indeed under siege. Tertius could only hope that he'll make it out of this station alive. A family of his own, he needs to come back to in one piece.

…

_**Jakiro Ward, Upper Wards – X-Ray Sierra One**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1500 hours**_

_**Master Field Agent von Rosshart – taking a walk**_

Gerhardt, with Vogel and a squad of his agents beside him, walked across the ruined corridors of the alien space station. The thin men didn't do their jobs as planned – their disguises were almost instantaneously found out, and they were forced to result to just attacking and causing terror. All around the XCOM agents were the mangled bodies of several aliens, four of which that looked quite dissimilar to the turians.

The sight of other alien species made uncomfortable knots inside Gerhardt's stomach. It seems that the interrogated turians provided at least a modicum of truth – that they were part of a greater galactic community. Now that human forces have attacked the supposed hub of this alien community, those species that the turians were allied to would most likely throw in their lot with their old ally to go against the Federation 'invaders'.

_Oh well,_ Gerhardt thought. _At least we know that this station _is_ an important target_. _It truly is a damned shame that we didn't know that there are civilians in here_._ We could've taken efforts to avoid this._

Indeed, Gerhardt had taken major strides to avoid inflicting casualties on alien civilians. He remembered a scene from mere minutes earlier, when one of the more gung-ho of his soldiers primed a needle grenade and lobbed it at a clustered group of cowering civilians. That instant, Gerhardt had used one of his older augs – the Nielson-Kaplinski Ilyushinite Manipulation Augmentation – on the grenade.

The Nielson-Kaplinski allows the user to physically influence any object made from Ilyushinite, even if only barely, from a distance. Thrusting his left arm's palm towards the grenade, Gerhardt used his aug, which caused the grenade to float into his open hand, like a positively charged magnet being attracted to a negatively charged counterpart. With a primed explosive now nestled in his hand, acting swiftly, the master field agent chucked the grenade into a desolate bulkhead in the distance, letting the spikes inside the explosive harmlessly imbed themselves on the metal surfaces. When some of his agents questioned his move of saving civilians – _alien_ civilians, Gerhardt was quick to retort that as a member of a species that worked hard to repel the ethereals from their planet, he'd rather not stoop to the ethereals' level just because the opportunity presented itself.

While Gerhardt's agents can be ordered not to shoot unarmed aliens, the thin men were a different breed of soldiers altogether. They were genetically bred to serve the ethereals – and the ethereals only. XCOM geneticists tried very hard to subvert this programming, and they were only mostly successful. This current type of thin men could be used as expendable infiltrators, but they developed a penchant for killing any and all not marked on their aggression-mitigating visors as 'friendly', with no distinction between combatants and non-combatants.

Of course, when Gerhardt and his agents are faced with aliens that could actually _fight,_ the Windhund can be just as ruthless and remorseless as the ethereals themselves.

"Heads up! Alien psi-ops!" An agent shouted.

Gerhardt turned his helmeted head to regard the subject of interest, which is a group of blue-skinned, tentacle-headed aliens. When he first spotted them, Gerhardt had trouble believing they were aliens. Indeed, the first few moments between humans and these alien species were spent at staring at each other with wide, inquisitive eyes. They looked remarkably just like human women, with only the crests atop their heads serving as a reminder that they weren't what they seemed. Then of course, somebody had to break the staring contest; someone from the alien side lobbed a blueish-white projectile at an agent, shredding his helmet, and his head, apart.

Back in the present time, the aliens covered each other as they advanced – mirroring how the turians moved across the battlefield, but with more subtlety and grace. Every few steps they make, one of them would stretch her right arm and fire off a psionic projectile at the XCOM agents, while the rest railed on with their rifles. Soon, after they had advanced far enough, all eight of them opened up with their psionics at once. Some of the slower XCOM agents suffered a multitude of undesirable fates at the hands' of the aliens' psionics. Gerhardt, while finding the psionics display quite fascinating to behold, had the presence of mind to move out of the projectiles' path. It was apparent that this alien species had a surplus of Gifted individuals among their armed forces' ranks.

Quickly reforming himself, Gerhardt flared his right arm, and from it, after a hiss and a sharp crackle, came a veritable storm of electricity. One of the aliens was promptly singed well beyond recognition; scorched into a smoking black mess in the shape of a body. Instantly thereafter, the arc bounced off of the alien's charred remains, latching onto a comrade of hers whom had the misfortune of standing too close. With two aliens down, Gerhardt decided to conserve energy, so he drew his plasma battle rifle and began firing away.

As he fought, Gerhardt took notice of how his plasma bolts seemed to be less than effective when used against these aliens when compared to turians, as it appeared that there was some sort of personal barrier that protected their bodies from plasma fire. It looked as if these barriers were strictly psionic in nature, so one of XCOM's bigger advantages in a straight-up firefight was nullified for this engagement.

In the end, the aliens were outnumbered severely, but they fought well. Seven of the sixteen agents that Gerhardt had with him at the time now lay on the cold metal floor, their figures perforated by mass-accelerated projectiles and their armor crushed by psionic forces that somehow were able to influence physical matter. Whatever these aliens are, they're definitely a cut above turian troopers.

_Come to think of it, none of us are hearing voices yet,_ Gerhardt thought. _At least I'm not. These aliens sure bear a peculiar strain of the Gift_.

When the XCOM unit had regrouped itself properly, their comms crackled to life.

"Field Agent von Rosshart, I trust that your earlier actions mean that the plan is a go?" Fleet Admiral Draynor's enthusiastic voice filled the comms. "We see fire and smoke coming from your marked positions. Are we cleared to engage?"

Gerhardt licked his lips in apprehension. "Ah… well, yes. Just don't be so heavy-handed about it, admiral. We weren't expecting civilians to be present in the station."

"Civilians? The _aliens _have civilians?" Came Draynor's surprised remark. "I thought this is a _military_ hub! I'd wager Tresdin regrets keeping his mouth shut right now."

Gerhardt frowned. "Please don't remind me. I've already seen enough dead non-combatants to last me ten lifetimes."

One surviving alien psi-ops soldier dazedly stood back up on her feet. She was about to raise her arm, but she was forcibly stopped halfway through. Gerhardt had introduced her to the last shock of her life.

…

_**FNWS Annihilation – Cthulhu-class dreadnought, 47,000 kilometers to X-Ray Sierra, Space**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1520 hours**_

_**Admiral Draynor – in charge of Assault Fleet Ozymandias**_

"Alright, everyone! Get this fleet moving! I want that space station secured and under our hands!"

The synchronized chorus of affirmatives from the rest of the fleet rang throughout the comms. Most of the voices were lacking in emotion, but some were quite enthusiastic at the prospect of attacking for once. It's obvious that they're confident about their chances of success, given that the undefeated Admiral Draynor is in command.

Draynor himself was confident of success. He'd never lost an engagement now, and he'd certainly give it his all in order to let that record stand. As his fleet advanced with hostile intent, even though he clearly knew that doing so isn't tactically sound, Draynor made sure that the _Annihilation _would be in front of his fleet. The fleet admiral couldn't resist the chance at sending a message to the aliens, which essentially entailed "we're better than you".

…

_**XWS Silas – Frederickson-class dreadnought, 16,000 kilometers to X-Ray Sierra, Space**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1530 hours**_

_**Principal Fleet Coordinator Timothé Chevalier – in charge of Detachment AF:172**_

"Sir, the Feds are on the move," Major Coordinator Kallestad gruffly reported over the melody. "Should we move in to assist?"

Paying half of his attention to the music he was playing over an antique gramophone, and the other half to his current situation, Fleet Coordinator Chevalier nodded unthinkingly. "We've already seen von Rosshart's signal. Tell the vessels to disperse and cover our allies' flanks. Make sure Draynor doesn't get in over his head."

"I'll make it so, sir." Kallestad nodded. "Anything else our vessels need doing?"

"Just don't let the Feds get too overextended. They have less ships under their command than they did back in Shanxi, and as powerful as their armaments might be, being outnumbered seven-to-one and flanked from all sides isn't a good thing."

A fusion lance discharge from the _Annihilation _colored everything with a glorious tinge of orange, accompanied by the sweet staccato rhythm of classical violin music. Soon, the Federal vessels started to mimic their command ship, letting loose with all their armaments, which fitted in peculiarly with the rhythm. It wasn't long before the aliens started to move on from their surprise to fight back, just as the current gramophone track descended into a thunderous crescendo.

…

_**ARSV Destiny Ascension – superheavy dreadnought, affiliated with the Asari Republics**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1530 hours**_

_**Matriarch Kruuin Yelana – in command of the Destiny Ascenscion**_

"Receiving HEAVY fire! I repeat: this is the ARSV _Destiny Ascension_, the Citadel Defense Force has taken substantial damage. We're barely holding the aliens back as we speak, over!"

Kruuin removed herself from the communicator. "Get this dreadnought to the rear! We won't last long under sustained—"

"Enemy prime vessel's priming up for another discharge! Six thousand kilometers to Defense Group Pandal-Seven-Five's portside flank!" A tech officer shouted, frantically tapping away at her console.

Seconds later, a giant beam of orange light pierced the void, scoring a hit to a turian cruiser's hull. The unfortunate vessel promptly detonated, ruined pieces of it going in all directions.

"Direct hit! The _Lakkan_ is out of commission!" A turian voice over the comms pronounced. "Prime vessel is reloading! Defense Group Regulus, go around their flanks and try to do some damage! Defense Group Kalinin, disperse fighter screens and keep Regulus alive! The rest of you, assume Resolute Fortress principle!"

Kruuin ran back to the communicator. She used up all of her strength in broadcasting the desperation in her voice. "Our situation is desolate! If any Hierarchy, Union or Republic force is out there, no matter how small, _please,_ for the Goddess' sake! The Citadel needs your assistance!"

"ARSV _Destiny Ascension, _this is the UWS _Palakad _of the Salarian Navy, we've received word that the Citadel is under siege minutes ago, and had scrambled a few hundred cruisers and two dreadnoughts to respond." A salarian voice entered the radio. "Where is our deployment location?"

An overwhelming sense of relief flooded the _Ascension_'s commander. "Thank you for joining us! We need you to reinforce the tertiary arm's frontal defenses! I'm not sure if Defense Group Naraya is still in operation, but if you hurry, you might save them!"

"Understood, matriarch." The salarian admiral said in affirmative. "We're on approach to the tertiary arm. Tell Naraya to hang tight, the cavalry is on the way."

A few minutes in, another voice entered the Citadel Defense Fleet comms.

"_Destiny Ascension_, this is Captain Tyranolux, of the HWS _Phalanx. _I'm speaking for the Jarrakus Mondranor Legion._" _A turian voice made it to the comlink. "We're here to assist. Tell us where we need to position ourselves."

"Forty degrees to our starboard flank, captain. Your fleet is needed to repel the alien boarders." Kruuin answered, more calmly now.

Although, the matriarch was inwardly perplexed at the turian reinforcements she got. Normally, it is standard protocol to iterate how many dreadnoughts one has brought to the fray. "Have you got any dreadnoughts, _Phalanx_?" She asked. "What's your dreadnought count?"

"No dreadnoughts with us so far, admiral." Came the response, to Kruuin's deep astonishment. "The dreadnoughts are still being prepared, and my ships were pretty easy enough to mobilize. I estimate that Admiral Nandrakan's dreadnought, the _Legionnaire,_ will be making an appearance in forty-five minutes at the least, an hour at the most. We've got new vessel types in tow, though. We call them the Equalizer-class fast attack vessels."

"Are you sure they're better than the dreadnoughts you could've brought?" Kruuin asked, somewhat irritated at her turian reinforcements.

An amused, but uncertain chuckle came from the turian. "Eheh, I've got no idea," He admitted. "But if you coordinate your forces with ours, I think we can buy enough time for proper reinforcements to arrive. Tyranolux out."

Kruuin waited for a few more seconds to see if any more reinforcements would arrive, but when none came after thirty seconds, the matriarch began to order her personal vessel to dock with the Council Chambers. The Councilors are usually protected by several hundred Council Guardsmen, but the reports about legions of aliens inside the Citadel itself might not be enough for just guardsmen to handle.

…

_**300 meters to the Council Chambers – X-Ray Sierra**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1535 hours**_

_**Agent Gerhardt – tasked with eliminating 'the Councilors'**_

As the thin men continued to wreak havoc inside the space station, Gerhardt and his men fought hard, cutting a swath of dead alien troopers to the last known location of his new objective – the alien leaders. Gerhardt figured that since human forces had already attacked a mixed-race station, the new alien species him and his men encountered wouldn't exactly be happy about this piece of news. The best option humans could now take was to do a pre-emptive strike and decapitate the aliens' leader figures in one bold stroke. That way, when hostilities between humans and the turians' allies finally come to fruition, they'd be less effective than they would if their leaders are alive. Of course, several times did the thought of brokering an armistice with the aliens did cross Gerhardt's mind. However, the _other _thought of hearing about the diplomatic envoy being mercilessly quashed in the face of an alien force that knew no such thing as 'harmony' or 'peace' effectively rendered those naïve ideas void. Godknows that nobody in the right mind would be stupid or ignorant enough to try _that_ again.

While fluidly discharging bursts of skin-searing plasma from his battle rifle, Gerhardt thought about the fate of his race once a full-scale galactic war had its way with it. _This isn't right,_ with disdain, he thought. _We should've waited and studied our targets a little bit more. That way, we'd have known that this station housed more than just turians. Now we have the bear the consequences of our actions._

"Guardsmen, with me! Break contact, priority move orders!" A turian shouted. The blue-skinned aliens and the amphibian-like aliens started to shift positions, covering each other as they withdrew.

"They're falling back!" Vogel declared, right after disembowelling a frog with his bayonet. Clearly, he was having the time of his life. "_Advance_, you mongrels! Rip the spines from their backs!"

XCOM personnel maintained spacing as they gradually took over the ground the aliens lost. Controlled bursts of plasma rifle fire and sharp blasts of alloy cannons drowned out the repetitive, almost-benign popping sounds that the aliens' weaponry made. Gerhardt's elite agents fell as they advanced – repeatedly perforated by mass-accelerated rounds, crushed by psionic forces, took lucky shots to their helmet's eye sockets… these were only some of the handful of the grisly fates that they suffered. At the same time, soldiers from the alien ranks were mercilessly gunned down like dogs in the street.

X-Ray Sierra is certainly alive with activity, but at the same time, the amount of dead people is rapidly amounting to several thousands – either human or otherwise.

…

_**Chora's Den, The Wards – The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1550 hours**_

_**Urdnot Wrex – krogan mercenary, on 'vacation' in the Citadel**_

The creature opened its mouth to fire off another one of his fancy poison clouds, but a carapaced fist put a stop to that. The creature tumbled over. It was about to lose balance and fall, but a blast from Wrex's shotgun instead sent it flying towards a metal pole.

"Picked a bad time to head to the Citadel," Wrex muttered to himself in between alternating firing bursts from his firearm and initiating biotic blasts. He shook his head eventually. "Ah, well. I'll be in need of a fight at some point eventually."

Wrex might be outnumbered by these strange, turian-looking creatures significantly, but Wrex has got several hundred years of accumulated skill and experience to his name, and with his opponents being day-old clones, the krogan mercenary firmly held the advantage to this fight.

A creature found itself suspended in the air with a well-placed biotic throw from Wrex after thinking that jumping to a ledge above was a good idea. The krogan promptly finished it off with a single shell from his gun. After killing another four, Wrex decided that he's had enough. With adrenaline rushing through his bloodstream, Wrex roared and charged forwards, gripping his shotgun for use as an improvised club.

When he was close enough, Wrex swung. The gun's metallic body connected with the side of a creature's head, knocking it over with a wet crunch. The creatures continued firing their directed energy firearms at Wrex, however. Fortunately, his biotic barrier somehow managed to protect him from most of damage – succeeding at doing something that kinetic barriers could not. The rest of the damage that leaked through was easily taken astride with Wrex's thick armored carapace, coupled with the thick ablative armor he donned.

By the end, all the creatures lay dead on the floor, in several different degrees of disfigurement. Not one single soul inside the Den was still in the position to be called 'alive' besides Wrex himself. The krogan didn't come out of the battle unscathed, nevertheless. Plasma burns stung all over the old mercenary's body, his armor would more than likely be too damaged for further repairs once he found the time to get out of it, and enough of the creatures' venom to kill a turian several times over is currently coursing through his bloodstream.

However, Wrex's current state wasn't too grievous enough for him not to stop and think about his situation.

_Whoever decided that attacking the Citadel was a good idea sure must have a quad he could use as a shield against a Maw,_ the krogan pondered, collapsing down on a bar stool. Fortunately, the stool was made with the weight of a krogan in mind. _Then again, they must be just as insane as my own race when it went up against the entire Ancients-damned Council._

After downing a couple of glasses left abandoned when the Den was attacked, Wrex decided to try out one of the fallen creature's guns. When he did, he was sorely disappointed when it promptly exploded into pieces and left a couple of plasma burns on his armored claws. _Shame. The credits I could make selling these._

Determining that there's nothing to gain with staying in the besieged space station any further, Wrex put down another mouthful of ryncol before heading out to find the nearest shuttle. With his 'vacation' effectively ruined by the unexpected alien attack on the Citadel, the krogan mercenary decided that his native planet of Tuchanka was now his next destination. Even if he was not in the best of terms with his brother Wreav, he might appreciate a warning of a new race powerful (or mindless) enough to mount an attack on the Council's center of operations.

…

_**The Council Chambers – The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1610 hours**_

_**Councilor Tevos – in the closely guarded protection of her personal guards**_

"Everyone, take defensive positions!" Colonel Relaika barked to her fellow guardsmen. Being the highest-ranking commando in the Chambers, she was put in charge, along with her turian counterpart, Captain Lakanav. "They'll be breaking through the doors any minute now. Keep the councilors safe, and give your lives for them if you have to!"

Tevos, unlike her fellow councilors Sparatus and Keldron, was too shocked out of her mind to comprehend things. She remembered that it was just a few days ago that she called for an emergency meeting with the matriarchs, with the chosen subject of selecting a date for a planned diplomatic incursion to the nearest alien colony. Now, the alien threat has decided to make an utter mess of that and attack the Citadel itself. How they managed to find the exact location of the space station would remain a mystery to Tevos for the last few remaining moments of her natural-born life.

Indeed, the whole Citadel Defense Fleet was completely caught unaware when a moderately-sized alien fleet suddenly emerged out of the Citadel relay. The alien vessels stood stationary like derelicts near the relay for several minutes before attacking, but the sheer shock value of the profoundly inconceivable scenario meant that the combined asari, turian and salarian fleet in defense of the Citadel had way too little time to prepare.

The loud, intermittent sounds of gunfire and directed energy firearm discharges from outside forced Tevos to break out of her dazed state. Never had she experienced live combat in all of her eight-hundred and twenty-nine years of living in this galaxy, but it appears that there truly is 'a first time in everything', as Councilor Keldron once said.

"You need this, Selissa." Sparatus reached for Tevos, with a sub-machine gun in hand. "Reports say that their numbers are many, but they're dwindling as our forces whittle them down. If we can bring some of their numbers down a notch, we might come out of this alive."

Tevos stared at the firearm before quickly snatching it. "I still don't believe this," She admitted, eyeing the gun in her hand. It felt cool and light, like a sleek new vidpad. "Not even the krogan could smash their way to the Citadel with ease."

Sparatus shook his head. "They didn't bludgeon their way to us. They only made it through because the krogan aren't smart enough to develop tactics more complicated than rushing in and attacking without restraint. These aliens are different – they're crafty. They ramped up the assault on the Faluskar, Apriri, Sevis, Lanlaraw and Athore battlefronts, intending to draw a large amount of the Hierarchy's forces to a fight, so that they can sneak in a fleet to Council space. We fell for it right away, and it should take some time for our forces to withdraw and defend the Citadel. The Citadel Defense Fleet is one of the strongest and well-disciplined fleets at our disposal, but I'm not sure if they could hold the aliens back. If the enemy fleet succeeds in breaking through the CDF though, they won't last long when our combined forces, plus most of the Hierarchy Navy, arrives to retake the station."

"But what happens to—"

"I'd rather we not think about that." Sparatus interjected, cutting Tevos off. "Let's just say that these aliens recognize our status as important figures to our race. They're probably here to kill us – or worse." With that said, the turian councilor unslung an assault rifle and took off with his personal retinue. The turians took firing positions behind a fortified barricade thereafter.

Tevos, at the request of her guards, took the opposite direction. She and her full compliment of Council Guards went further into the Council Chambers, into a more open and heavily guarded area. Soldiers belonging to different races scrambled and passed each other pieces of equipment, while the ones stationed in the front nervously gripped their rifles in anticipation. Barks entailing frantic orders from the officers, anxious replies of both affirmatives and negatives from the lower-ranked soldiers and subdued mutterings of prayers for salvation were all that could be heard inside the Chambers.

"Stay here, ma'am. And take this." A commando carefully led Tevos into cover behind a heavily guarded checkpoint and handed her a comm-bead. "If some of them got to you, please call us. Until then, we'll make sure none of the aliens ever reach you."

"Make sure you protect Davian and Letan as well," Tevos added. "I'm more than safe in here. They're the ones you need to worry about."

The commando saluted. "As the councilor wishes, it shall be so."

Tevos watched most of her soldiers depart, back to the Chambers' only entrance. The doors were as sealed and reinforced as they could be, the Council guardsmen stand ever ready, every defensive positions that could be used are now all heavily fortified, and yet, Tevos knew that she'll never see most of her men ever again.

A few moments of relative peace later, and the sounds of battle started to encroach upon Tevos' area.

"They've broken through the outer defense perimeter. The survivors are pulling back." Tevos heard Captain Lakanav's eerily calm voice over the comm-bead she was handed. "On your guard. Don't fire until we all have visual confirmation. Short bursts only."

Despite knowing that there's nothing encouraging to be gained by listening to the comms coming from the outside, Tevos changed channels, one that's made specifically for the soldiers outside. She immediately regretted her curiosity taking hold of her actions.

Tevos could make out a voice from the intermingled shouts and static enough. "They've broken through! To the fall back positions! Pull back! PULL BACK!"

"They're coming! By the Spirits, THEY'RE COMING!" Another panicked voice cried. "G-get ready! Oh Spirits, get ready! This is gonna be bad!"

A third voice was infinitely more confident about its owner's unsalvageable situation. "Cover their retreat! On your feet, you spiritless tedrani! Come on, I'd be damned if we all die like cowards this day!"

Finally, a synthesized asari-like voice could be made out amongst the frenzied shouts and distant explosions, like a beacon of order shining amongst the chaos that is the Wards.

"Outpost Seven has been overrun, no survivors. Outpost Six has been abandoned, eleven survivors. Outpost Five was overrun, three survivors. Outpost Four has been destroyed, one survivor. Outpost Three has been abandoned, sixteen survivors. Outpost Two is in operation, twenty-nine personnel. Outpost One is under siege, eight remaining personnel. Total allied personnel count in the Chambers perimeter: six hundred ninety two. Estimated enemy personnel count: eight hundred seventy four."

Tevos promptly switched channels, trying to get back to the previous, less unruly channel she was in. However, because of how her fingers twitched and trembled, she accidently switched to a different, random channel. And really, she did not like what she heard at all.

"-to all the defenders of this space station, please lay down your arms and submit." A voice speaking in stilted Vextrenese said. "This station now belongs to XCOM. Further bloodshed would not be necessary, all you need to do is to surrender and make it easier on yourselves. On our end, we will make sure that you will not be harmed. Defiance will be met by severe repercussions, up to including death. You are not—"

An explosion from the front drowned out the words that the enemy propagandist might've uttered.

…

_**Entrance, Council Chambers – X-Ray Sierra**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1620 hours**_

_**Agent Gerhardt – with his retinue**_

"No dice, sir! I repeat, no dice!"

Gerhardt fired a quick burst of his rifle before turning his back to cover, looking at the doors to the objective. All the while, the low wall he was taking cover behind made a series of metallic pings as enemy bullets repeatedly impacted it. Above him, enemy small arms fire whizzed in the air, narrowly missing the top of his helmet.

"Plant another one! Double— no, _triple_ the charges this time!" He shouted at the agent with the explosives as he initiated the cooldown procedure on his overheated firearm. "Hurry it up, soldier! We aren't going to last much longer out here!"

The explosives specialist promptly went to work, but not before planting a deployable plasma barrier device on the floor, so to cover her exposed flank. Since she needed to plant another extra plasma charge on the doors, the specialist will need double the time to be babysat.

Reaching for the comms device on his collar, Gerhardt ordered, "Vogel, take my place and keep the lieutenant alive. I want teams Leoric and Ostarion to deploy cloaks and follow my signature, we've got to silence those turrets!"

With that said, Gerhardt activated his armor's built-in Wraith module and disappeared from sight. Narrowly moving across the firefight between the two warring forces, he regrouped with his fellow Wraith-cloaked comrades by following their friendly signatures through his helmet's HUD.

"Sergeant, take Leoric team. Stay here, take defensive positions and cover our flanks. Don't engage until I say so, or we get compromised. The rest of you, on me." Gerhardt ordered. With his retinue of cloaked soldiers, they surreptitiously advanced further into the alien lines, carefully avoiding coming into contact with the oblivious aliens.

"There it is, sir." A corporal reported, his sights on a cluster of enemy heavy turret emplacements. At the barrel-end of the guns were Vogel and his soldiers, trying hard to keep their position clear of hostiles. Alien troopers ran back and forth, repositioning to better positions, trying to hand over supplies to their comrades, or just standing guard over the turrets.

Gerhardt readjusted the dial on his metal hand, setting it to be more effective against multiple contacts. Moving forwards with his men, they took the best firing positions they could find.

"I'll toss gas grenades under those sniper teams' feet," Gerhardt highlighted three markswoman-spotter pairs of blueskins. "And the grenadiers would place needle grenades at the front, center and back of the emplacement." Three regions in the enemy emplacement's perimeter started glowing blue. "Everyone ready? We'd either be shooting or bolting our way back into our own lines after this, just so you know." For emphasis, the Wraith module's icon flashed yellow on everybody's HUDs, indicating that it's now down to half capacity.

Without hesitation, three of Gerhardt's men unpinned their chosen explosives from their grenade belts, primed them, and with practiced precision, threw their chryssalid-spike grenades more-or-less spot on their targets. Gerhardt himself used his Ilyushinite Manipulation Aug to fling thin man venom grenades to each of the enemy sniper teams' positions in rapid succession.

The explosives detonated in quick succession – enemy soldiers resisted the first needle grenade blast with their kinetic barriers, but after the second and third blast, at least forty percent of the soldiers were done for, with the rest having severe puncture-type injuries. The alien sniper teams were too busy retching and choking on thin man poison to take aim on the advancing human soldiers on their position's rear flank.

Swiftly silencing the rest of the soldiers and reducing the enemy turrets to smoking masses of metal with a single well-placed plasma charge, the XCOM troopers immediately began to retreat back to their original position near the doors. "Leoric! The objective's out of action – we're pulling back to your position now. What's your current status?" Gerhardt shouted over his radio as he sprinted.

"Already back with Senior Field Agent Vogel, sir!" An agent reported. "We took out several bands of skirmishers before we got too swamped up to maintain our positions. Longreach and Tivaks didn't make it, they're—"

"Dammit, didn't I tell you to hold positions unless I say otherwise?" Gerhardt angrily shot back. He cut comms and continued running, only to be interrupted when one of his comrades was quite literally torn to pieces when a hidden turret emplacement from above revealed itself and held the poor trooper as a target.

"Ambush!" An agent shouted. The XCOM troopers dispersed and continued running. Some were fortunate enough to have enough suit power to activate their Wraith modules, but most were not as auspicious. They had to endure being harassed by enemy skirmishers taking potshots at them as they scrambled to fall back into friendly lines.

By the time Gerhardt's team had reached his earlier position, only a pitiful few of Ostarion team were still in salvageable conditions. Vogel's own men seemed to have taken significant casualties as well, as most of the agents that were still alive and standing minutes ago are now on the floor, dead.

Seeing his surroundings, Gerhardt didn't join Ostarion to stop and catch his breath behind cover. He continued running, until he reached Vogel.

"How are the charges?" He half-panted, half-spoke, taking his position behind cover as to not get singled out by an enemy sniper. "Tell me you've got it covered."

Vogel, who looked like he was crouching behind cover as he waited for his rifle to cool down, didn't respond. Gerhardt took hold of his collar and tried to pull him over, until he noticed the small pool of blood amalgamating underneath his second-in-command's form. Acting calmly, Gerhardt flipped Vogel around – spotting a large, ghastly bullet hole made on his helmet's faceplate, with blood still continually flowing from the gruesome breach. In the dead agent's clutches was the detonation trigger for the plasma charges.

Having no time to lament over his second-in-command's death, Gerhardt took the trigger and flipped the cap open. He opened comms to his men. "Has the lieutenant finished priming the charges, yet? We need to clear out of here before more of the aliens arrive!"

"She's already primed up three minutes ago, sir!" An agent responded. "We're waiting for Vogel to get the offensive going!"

Gerhardt frowned. He looked down on the lifeless agent and muttered a quick valediction. Smothering the sorrow for his fallen soldiers like a true commander, Gerhardt triggered the explosives with a metallic finger.

The doors to the objective promptly blew open, crashing into the interiors of the Chambers with a deafening thud. When the smoke cleared, a whole legion of alien troopers was revealed to be quite ready for the inevitable human advance.

A flanging voice in Vextrenese shouted, "Defend the councilors, or die for the cause! Make them suffer!"

…

_**ARSV Destiny Ascension**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1635 hours**_

_**Matriarch Yelana**_

Despite the reinforcements that she received, Kruuin's forces are still on the losing side. The _Destiny Ascension_ itself had scored heavy cruiser kills at the dozens, but the aliens just shouldered on their losses and kept advancing. Worse still, the lumbering monstrosity of a superheavy dreadnought on the aliens' side took direct hits to its hull astride and continued firing, scorching several allied vessels with the unholy mother of all ship-mounted DEWs.

"Defense Group Revanyha has been taken out, all survivors are falling back to quinary arm." A salarian vice admiral reported.

"Defense Group Feder Laks, take Revanyha's place and hold positions!" Kruuin ordered. "Keep the aliens back, don't let them reach the Citadel!"

Hurriedly taking off from her station, Kruuin reached the comms station and pinged the Council Chambers for news. "Chambers, this is Matriarch Kruuin Yelana of the _Destiny Ascension_. I need a situational report, over." She said over the comms, using her calmest tone of voice.

"Matriarch, this is Colonel Relaika, we're—" An explosion drowned out the colonel's words. It was moments before she resurfaced. "The invaders have breached the doors to the Chambers. We're taking some heavy casualties down here, but we're holding for now. We've been whittling their numbers down to size, but I'm not sure if we could—"

Kruuin's omni-tool suddenly issued a series of frantic beeps, interrupting Relaika. It was an inbound transmission marked with the Hierarchy Navy's insignia. "Keep me posted, colonel. For the Republic, Kruuin out." The matriarch cut comms from the Chambers area and opened comms to the Hierarchy signal sender.

"_Destiny Ascension, _Matriarch Yelana. To whom am I speaking to?" The matriarch asked, hoping to talk to someone bringing more reinforcements. Goddess knows that the Citadel needs more soldiers to fight for it.

"This is Admiral Nandrakan of the Draius Ferlodinus Legion. I trust that the Jarrakus Mondranor detachment had informed you of my arrival? We're here with the dreadnoughts."

Kruuin perked up. "Oh, the _Legionnaire?_ Yes, a captain told me about your fleet. Tell me, how many dreadnoughts have you brought for us?"

"Three dreadnoughts, matriarch. How did your legion reinforcements fare?" The admiral curtly asked.

"Not so good, I'm afraid." Kruuin responded. "Your new 'Equalizer' ships aren't very durable; they keep getting culled by enemy DEW fire."

The matriarch heard the turian admiral sighing in exasperation. "That's because they're _not_ meant to be used as a blunt instrument. The meatheaded Mondranorians aren't using them right."

"I'm hoping that you have a solution for that, admiral." Kruuin said, looking outside the _Destiny Ascension_'s reinforced windows to see the new turian reinforcements she received. Strange, the dreadnoughts seem to be content with staying back, and the fleet seemed to compose mostly of small, but swift and heavily armed vessels. "Because it appears that most of your ships are made up of Equalizers."

"Leave it to me, matriarch." The admiral, in a low, threatening voice, growled. "They aren't making a fool of me twice. I swear to the Spirits, this day will be ours."

…

_**The Council Chambers – The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1640 hours**_

_**Councilor Sparatus**_

With his rifle all but overheated, and his guards too occupied with other threats, Sparatus could only watch helplessly as he watched Councilor Keldron's personal retinue get taken down one by one until all that's left are two heavily wounded guardsmen and the salarian councilor himself. Keldron had used his technological prowess to assist in defending the Chambers and himself, but in the end, it wasn't enough.

Six of the turian-like aliens literally dropped from a dark corner in the ceiling. They swiftly took care of the wounded salarian guardsmen with envenomed clouds and brutally bludgeoned Keldron to death with their weapons before moving to assist their more 'normal'-looking comrades.

"Councilor! We need to get you out of here!" Captain Lakanav called out from the distance as he unloaded his rifle on an alien trooper huddled under cover. "The bastards are closing in on our position! We'll get swarmed at this rate!"

Being mainly a politician whom had little experience in matters of warfare and strategy, Sparatus saw no reason to argue, since Keldron was already either dead, or horrifically maimed. "Lead the way, captain! Take me to Tevos, we'll make our stand there!"

The turians called for their comrades to reposition to the inner depths of the Chambers. One by one, the collective Council soldiers took off, while those who were left steadied themselves and covered their colleagues' retreats. Despite their losses and a tarnished morale, the soldiers suffered relatively minor losses once they reached Councilor Tevos and her guardsmen.

"What happened out there?" Tevos asked Sparatus when he arrived. "I heard an explosion, and then—"

"The outer Chambers area is fucked, that's what," Sparatus curtly answered, discarding his overheated rifle for another one he took from a guardsman's outstretched hand. "The aliens are getting closer, and we've got nowhere else to run to anymore. In the next few minutes, we'll either live as the vanquishers, or die as the vanquished. Simple as that."

"I appreciate your bluntness," Sparatus made a small smile when he saw the Tevos he knew resurfacing. "But I intend to live through this day. Don't forget, my biotics aren't what you'd call ordinary."

"That's the spirit." The turian councilor said, taking another rifle and holding it out for his asari counterpart to take. "You'll need more than your biotics and a measly pistol to make a difference. Time to put that anti-assassin training we had when we were first inducted as councilors to the test."

Tevos took the firearm and made a mirthless smile, bowing her head low. "I will not be found wanting, if that's what you're thinking."

In response, Sparatus gently lifted Tevos' head up with a talon to her chin. "Keep thinking like that, Selissa. Whether we'd end up alive or dead in the next few minutes, it'd be what fate had ordained us." He tiredly smiled, if only to lift Tevos' spirits.

Tilting his head to the front, the turian councilor took his colleague by a shoulder. "Come on, we shouldn't let our guests waiting for us. I heard they're quite an impulsive bunch."

…

_**14,000km to the Citadel, the Command Bridge, HWS Legionnaire – turian response force flagship**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1650 hours**_

_**Vice Admiral Kayvaan Dymaco – placed as Admiral Nandrakan's second-in-command – Draius Ferlodinus Legion**_

Vice Admiral Dymaco thoroughly disapproved— no, thoroughly _loathed_ how his situation turned out. Several days ago, he was – as usual – in charge of the _Legionnaire_, his very own dreadnought. He had several soldiers and crewmen under his command, ever ready to go after Terminus pirates, the usual enemies of the Hierarchy Navy. Everything was as perfect as they could be.

But then everything turned for the worse when news of a very furious alien race making decidedly vicious attacks on turian territory reached Palaven. In an instant, Dymaco's forces found themselves thrown from their relatively peaceful post to the new warfront, with orders to trade blows with an enemy much worse than mere space-faring criminals. The vice admiral's men had suffered numerous casualties as a result of continuous heavy spaceborne fighting. Never had he experienced such overwhelming firepower coming from an enemy force, and consequently, Dymaco had to abandon the usual turian protocols when dealing with (inferior) enemy forces and had to resort to completely new, improvised on-the-fly strategies.

In doing so, Dymaco had been one of the few turian admirals that actually made progress with their objectives. But how effective he truly is, even Dymaco thought that he most likely did very little to stem the alien tide.

However, Palaven Command apparently caught on to this, and had stripped Dymaco of his command of his own vessel and assigned Admiral Nandrakan as the_ Legionnaire_'s overall commander. This fact further drove Dymaco into a quiet rage, as he knew full well of just how successful Nandrakan is against the alien forces.

"All forces, assume Titanbreaker Doctrine," Admiral Nandrakan ordered from her position at the CIC. "Remember, dreadnoughts and cruisers should be at the very back, frigates should form a firing line at the front, and Equalizers should take the fight to the aliens."

Dymaco groaned as he opened comms to the whole fleet. "This is Vice Admiral Dymaco, orders coming in: _Might of Zethorus, Scholar _and _Tritonadeus_, take positions at the rear end of our formation and begin plotting fire solutions. Cruisers cover the dreadnoughts' flanks; don't let any enemy vessel close, and if you can, try to provide fire support alongside the dreadnoughts. Frigates, advance forwards. Equalizers…"

The vice admiral paused, dreading the thought of sending obviously ill-designed, poorly-armored vessels as the main attack force. _They'll be slaughtered, and all thanks to Nandrakan._

"Don't get killed, and do your thing."

The turian forces gave all their affirmatives. Even though they seemed confident of success, Dymaco didn't share their sentiments. The whole turian fleet is under the thrall of an admiral proven to be too incompetent for command. This endeavor was already doomed for failure, and being a turian actually worth his salt, there's absolutely nothing the vice admiral could do about it. _Nothing_.

_Truly, Grand Admiral Tacitus must've lost his marbles. Heh, good thing I didn't save up for retirement._

…

_**FNWS Annihilation, Cthulhu-class dreadnought – 3,000km to X-Ray Sierra**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1715 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Draynor**_

"Status report."

And yet another discharge from the _Annihilation_'s Godfinger main battery silenced an enemy cruiser – the last one in sight, in fact. The titanic vessel itself rocked slightly from the sheer amount of power that its primary armament created, creating ripples on Admiral Draynor's half-finished espresso cup.

"New targets in play, sir!" A tech officer mechanically reported from his station. "Ship count's an estimated four hundred, to the portside flank."

Draynor grimaced. His enemies are like bacteria cells, in that they are now quickly multiplying in numbers. The human forces were already severely outnumbered before, now it looks like if the aliens keep churning out more vessels, the Federation would be forced to cut losses and fall back.

"How did our distraction go? Are they still buying it?"

"Not as much as forty seven minutes ago, sir." The tech officer responded. "The vast majority of the alien forces on the Sevis and Athore battlefronts have already done full withdrawals, while the ones on Apriri and Eustace are still in the process of doing so."

"Well, there goes our 'perfect' plan. Lieutenant Colonel Doolittle must be rolling on his grave right now." Taking a quick sip out of his drink before finally discarding it, Draynor shrugged off the sugary rush brought on by his beverage and steadied himself.

"Open up a commlink to the Unity commander," The admiral was one of the few people in the Federation with knowledge of the existence of XCOM, whom had regularly taken the guise of a private military contractor company called Unity Solutions and Resources. Unfortunately, his crew had to be kept in the dark for now. "Ask them how their forces are doing stationside."

It took a few dreadful minutes of anticipation before the tech officer returned from a comms console with news. "They've breached the main Chambers area, sir. Casualties are said to have reached an upwards of sixty-three percent, though. I'm not sure if they'll ever accomplish their—"

Seven frigates to the _Annihilation_'s portside flank suddenly erupted in bright bluish-white explosions after taking direct hits from a multitude of dreadnought-class shells from behind. Mere seconds later, more enemy projectiles came from the rear, taking out another fourteen allied vessels of varying types. The Federation flagship itself took damage to the engines at the stern, but it was negligible enough to be ignored.

Draynor picked himself up from the holoconsole he was thrown against. Hurriedly undoing any sort of trigger he might've caused as his body pressed against a mass of switches, the admiral acted in alarm.

"Dreadnoughts!" He shouted as his hands raced across the console. He turned around to his men, his face seething with barely restrained anger. "I demand to know… how the FUCK did you miss goddamned DREADNOUGHTS sneaking around our flanks!"

"They aren't dreadnoughts, sir!" A sensor officer shouted as he righted the earphones messily wrapped around his head. "They're frigates! They're just tiny, goddamned frigates!"

Draynor stood absolutely flabbergasted from the news he received. But in the next second, he was back to his usual self, as befitting an admiral of his status. "Frigates with dreadnought-class armaments? How the hell are they moving those things around, then?!"

"Sir, scans show that they've got virtually no armored plating and minimal shielding! We could put holes in those things with goddamned pistols if we could!" A tech officer answered. "They're coming around for another go!"

"Come about, then!" The admiral ordered. "Tell some of the cruisers to turn around and deal with the parasites and get this ship out of the front! Continue with the damned assault!"

"Aye aye, sir!" The crew responded in synchronization.

…

_**HWS Karanavas Caracalla – Equalizer-class fast attack/withdrawal vessel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1715 hours**_

_**Captain Infernicius Valadeus – Commander of Equalizer Wing 14, re-assuming Titanbreaker Doctrine**_

"Direct hit! Direct hit!" Executive Officer Aemilia shouted in excitement. The blow that the turian vessels just struck was the most successful for the day. "Twenty one contacts _annihilated_! Way to go, gunnery crew!" She turned her head back to her console and gasped.

"Seventy plus contacts are turning around to face us," Aemilia turned to her captain. "Fifty plus cruisers and twenty frigates in total! What do we do, sir?"

Captain Valadeus looked around his ship's surroundings nervously through a console. The enemy vessels really had made the decision to deal with his attack force, but fortunately, they're doing so in a _very_ slow fashion. Most turian vessels could disengage and come about in twenty seconds at the very most, but the enemy vessels are taking more than a minute thus far. Clearly, the aliens haven't taken sufficient strides to design their massive, colossus-like ships to quickly turn to their sides to deal with flankers.

However, actually trying to get to an optimal position to flank the alien fleet was a real pain in the cloaca to achieve. Admiral Nandrakan had to sacrifice two whole frigate flotillas to lure the enemy vessels into a position where they could be ambushed by an all-Equalizer force. Mercifully, all that's left to accomplish was the attack itself.

Quickly giving his thanks to the Spirits, Valadeus made his decision. "Press the attack, men! Give it everything we've got!"

The Equalizer captains gave their affirmatives, seeing first-hand of the effectiveness of their new ships. Swiftly loading and discharging yet another volley of dreadnought-class mass accelerated shells combined with the usual photon torpedoes, the turians inflicted another grievous blow to the alien fleet just as they tried in desperation to retaliate.

When the alien ships reached halfway to a full 180 degree turn, Valadeus' wolf pack had just finished plotting new fire solutions when suddenly, about a quarter of the turian Equalizers were reduced to floating metallic wrecks. The aliens made the smartest decision they could make: turn to the side and use the starboard guns to make the reciprocal strike.

Valadeus was about to take the attacks astride, when another large part of his attack force got destroyed by an unexpected attack from behind. Another alien force (from a secondary faction, the captain presumed) had stealthily made its way behind the turians while they were busy capitalizing on the enemy ship-design flaw, effectively counter-flanking them.

"Alright, time to shove off!" Valadeus ordered. "All shipmasters, fall back to friendly formations! Retreat!"

The combined alien vessels fired once more, but the turian vessels' mobility coupled with their small profiles allowed most of them to evade enemy fire, which was expected this time. Of the several dozens of turian Equalizers present within Valadeus' command, about half of it was destroyed by enemy return fire, but it was clear that the sacrifice was well worth the rewards of destroyed alien cruisers, frigates and a damaged flagship.

Valadeus' attack force wasn't the only one, though. All over Citadel space, similar events started to occur. The tides of battle now had slowly started to turn on the aliens, much to the Citadel Defense Fleet's relief. However, matters are still far from being concluded, as the main enemy flagship still continued to sow destruction with near impunity, and most of the alien forces are still in the fight, despite taking noticeable losses, and the CDF's newfound edge could easily be taken away with a single wrong move.

…

_**The Council Chambers – The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1730 hours**_

_**Councilor Sparatus**_

The Chambers area was a gruesome mess, to say the very least. Bodies, either shot to death, scorched by plasma, mind-shorted by psionics or crushed by biotic force, lay strewn across the area in a fashion that could only be described as anarchic. Collateral damage was rampant, blood and gore was a painfully common sight and the moans and screams of the dying could be faintly heard over the gunfire.

Sparatus stood with his guardsmen as they traded fire with the alien forces. The enemy had reduced the Council guardsmen's numbers to pitifully low numbers, but at a very high cost; nearly none of the subversive-type aliens are still alive, and only a handful of alien troopers are still standing, with the highest-ranking among them – a faceless, rifle-wielding alien with a metal hand that shoots lightning – leading the remnants of his attack force.

"Spirits!" Dropping down and out of the way of an incoming shotgun blast, Sparatus had barely any time to recover before one of the aliens broke ranks, fixed a bayonet at the end of his rifle and rushed the downed turian.

The councilor pulled his rifle from the ground and hosed the storming alien down, liberally spraying his armor with mass-accelerated slugs. The Council guardsmen closest to Sparatus noticed this, and had also rushed to take the alien down before he could harm their charge. After five whole seconds of continued firing, the alien took a mortal wound to his throat and fell down on both knees. He still tried to pull himself up, but after another second of being at the center of attention of half of the enemy combatants in the room, he stayed down permanently.

However, the alien trooper was apparently a decoy – one that did his job admirably, at that. Sparatus was thrown to the floor when a nearby plasma explosion reduced three of his guardsmen into badly-burnt, writhing masses on the ground. Four more explosions presumably took down more than their fair share of Council guardsmen. The turian councilor could only hope that Tevos was still alive.

Picking himself up and dusting off his uniform, Sparatus faced down the last remaining alien infiltrators.

"Here they come, lads!" Captain Lakanav shouted with the last of his strength. "Our fate draws near! It's kill or be killed now!"

As they advanced closer, Sparatus could see the aliens much more clearly now. Their armor, training and superior equipment seemed to be the only things that kept them still alive battling the elite of the elite in all of the Council's military forces, and despite the heavy losses they sustained, they maintained their military-style spacing and professionalism with unnerving zeal.

"You will not fire until I say so!" Lakanav, in a feverish tone of voice, said. "You will not _fall_ until I say so! Soldiers of the Council, are you prepared to die?!"

At first, nobody responded. Thinking that his last words might as well be one for the history books, Sparatus chose to speak up, training his rifle downrange. He could only hope that at least somebody would live to tell the tale of how the Council died fighting.

"I have my rifle, I've killed dozens of them, and I've lived to see this thing to the bitter end. I couldn't ask for a better way, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Let this battle be forever remembered in the halls of glory – of how the councilors and their brave soldiers fought and died, _free of fear and filled with resolve_!"

Hearing the turian councilor speak with a voice devoid of all trepidation and with unyielding steadfastness, the rest of the guardsmen made one last mirthful cheer, shouting back in defiance at their fates.

Sparatus smiled, and the rest happened in a blur.

…

_**Inner Council Chambers – X-Ray Sierra**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1825 hours**_

_**Agent Gerhardt**_

Gerhardt struggled to shake off the drowsiness he was experiencing as he rose from his prone position in the ground. His mind rushed off to his last conscious thought, and he promptly remembered his ill-fated charge to kill off the last remaining aliens in the Chambers area. Surely, if his agents hadn't killed off the councilors already, or if they weren't smart enough to flee from X-Ray Sierra the moment the Federal fleet arrived, they would be among the last of the aliens.

It went well at first, with the initial grenade barrage, but after that, the aliens suddenly fought with surprising tenacity and persistence, that even Gerhardt found himself taken aback. After him and his agents advanced forwards enough, the aliens swiftly unleashed a combined psionic and conventional assault – with the majority of the alien force providing suppression fire to keep the XCOM forces pinned down while two small advance forces flanked from both sides. Going into battle with the ferocity of a force five times their numbers, the aliens actually put up a good fight, if only in desperation. Alien psionic troopers held down XCOM troopers using psionically-projected black spheres that floated in the air and sucked in any objects near, while their non-Gifted comrades railed on with their firearms. Turians did what they did best, utilizing clever use of their surroundings, dispersing and redeploying whenever danger was great in one area, and covering each other with suppressive fire if necessary. The amphibians were the least competent in direct combat, but their slew of gadgetry and underhanded tricks covered for their shortcomings nicely – more than once did troopers mistake a holographic projection for the real thing, often costing them or a fellow agent their lives.

On their end, the beleaguered XCOM agents held their ground with all they've got. Almost everyone was worn out after a hard day's fighting, and it shows. Tactical mistakes that could've been easily avoided without fatigue and injuries plaguing every agent's minds were made with painful amounts of repetition, shots missed their marks by a slight sway of the hand, and thrown grenades only succeeded in injuring hostiles, not the killing they were intended to do. Gerhardt tried his best to mitigate his unit's losses but it wasn't enough. Now, standing over rubble and piles of dead soldiers of all races, Gerhardt wasn't even sure if there was a single human besides himself still standing.

Clutching his punctured, bleeding shoulderplate with his metallic right hand, Gerhardt dazedly walked further into the Chambers. The agent's other hand reached for a satchel latched to his belt for a canister of meds, but he wasn't surprised when his gauntlet came across an empty satchel – having used up all of his medical supplies on his injured comrades already.

Before long, the agent had rebooted his armor's built-in comms system. "This is Rosshart, all remaining units, regroup on my position." He raggedly ordered through his comms. "We're almost there, we just need to—"

"Contact!" A frayed feminine voice suddenly shouted, causing Gerhardt to instinctively dive down under cover. His instincts saved his life, as in the next moment, the position he was standing on was peppered by mass-accelerated projectiles.

With his vision heavily tinted with black spots and red marks, and with a shattered, barely-functioning faceplate, Gerhardt took out his pistol from a compartment in his armor. "All units, please respond!" He shouted into his comms. "I'm under heavy suppression fire, if anyone's still out there, I need—"

Suddenly, a cylindrical object landed on Gerhardt's armored feet. Knowing that running from the object from close range was pointless, the agent promptly cut comms, hastily took out a purple syringe from a satchel on his belt before just as quickly injecting it on the insertion porthole to the side of his armor's neck area.

Utilizing his mind's last drug-free moments, the agent then promptly covered his shattered faceplate with both of his hands and did his best to curl his body into a ball. Seconds later, he only barely felt the receiving end of a point-blank needle grenade explosion.

…

_**HWS Legionnaire, turian response force flaghip – 2,400km to the Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1830 hours**_

_**Admiral Nandrakan**_

"There it is…" Lina muttered, peering into the windows. "That's the same dreadnought that did a number on my expeditionary fleet. I could recognize those markings anywhere." She gazed at the stylized alien letters emblazoned to the alien superheavy dreadnought's starboard flank. In fact, the ship was so massive, that even from a thousand kilometers away, Lina could still see the vessel with pristine detail – much less the giant, imposing letters inscribed into its hull.

"Of course… you're planning to order the fleet to reduce your adversarial ship to scrap metal, and not gape at it all day, have you?" Dymaco, in his most deadpan voice, said. "So, what'll it be – yet another Stalwart Predator mirroring the tactical brilliance of your oh-so-very-successful command of the Relay 314 forces?" He couldn't resist expressing his less-than-pleased attitude on his downgraded position.

Lina craned her head to her new second-in-command to give him an unamused glare. She knew he hated her from the very start because of her tainted reputation, but even more so when she took over the commands to his flagship and a sizable amount of his war-tempered forces. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in a Spirits-damned war, vice admiral. Being a smartass won't accomplish anything useful for everyone." She acidly responded. "I know how you feel about me being assigned to take command of your forces and your ship, but really, with the way you're treating me thus far, it's not hard to say that I don't really give much of a damn. Now be a good soldier and tell the group captains Reshan and Norafe to prepare for strafing runs on the prime alien vessel's portside and sternmost flanks."

Dymaco gave Lina a hard, unfeeling look. "Is that a wise plan, ma'am? All of the prime vessel's vulnerable flanks are covered for by an extravagant amount of escorts vessels…" He paused, taking in a deep, emphasized breath. "As you know."

"I know what I'm doing, Dymaco." The admiral responded in an irritated tone. "Our dreadnoughts' guns are all facing the prime vessel's starboard flank, ready to fire. If the fighters and the Equalizers can draw the aliens' attention to the prime vessel's portside flank and its rear flank, we could give it three whole volleys of dreadnought fire to its now-exposed starboard before it could mobilize a proper defense. I don't even think they'll spare the time to get that behemoth of a ship to come about to engage any flankers up front."

Dymaco didn't give off a single sarcastic remark as typical of him. He only issued a curt grunt before scurrying off to carry out his orders.

…

_**FNWS Annihilation**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1835 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Draynor**_

"Sir, I'm picking up multiple contacts converging on our portside flank. Estimated vessel count's two-thousand seven hundred fighters and one hundred fifty frigates." A tech officer reported.

The fleet admiral stared down his holoconsole. Highlighted in green at the center of the console are his remaining forces, scattered about and hard-pressed in heavy combat. Tinted in a bluish-green hue and dispersed unevenly across the entire battlefront are his XCOM allies, doing the best that they can to stem the alien tide – with casualties noticeably mounting, as shown by the blue explosions making themselves apparent here and there every so often. Finally, with a menacing, shadowy deep red shade, the alien forces slowly battered their way to the creamy human filling at their centermost, heavily protected area – the _Annihilation_ itself.

Now, it seems that the aliens have picked up the assault on Draynor's portside area, where a single Ferguson-class dreadnought, several dozen cruisers and a few frigates are tasked with keeping the area secure. Little by little, a legion of red blips descended upon the human formation like a horde of bloodthirsty chryssalids on a battered squad of doomed soldiers back in the day. Knowing that the portside forces stood little chance against such an overwhelming force even with a Ferguson within its ranks, Draynor immediately made an order for what few forces he could spare to do all they could to bolster their comrades' war-beaten numbers. This decision, however, proved to be a very serious mistake for the entire joint operation.

…

_**HWS Legionnaire**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1855 hours**_

_**Admiral Nandrakan**_

"Ma'am, the aliens are taking the bait. Their reserve forces and some of their active forces are disengaging to relocate and cover the prime vessel's right flank. What're your orders now?" A tech officer asked.

Lina didn't hesitate as she did in the past. "All dreadnoughts, open fire on my mark! Frontline cruisers, cease firing and ready up your main guns! I need them primed and prepared for discharge! The rest of the cruisers, form lines and get behind the vanguard line!"

"Aye aye, ma'am!" "Solid copy on that, admiral." "We'll make it so, ma'am!" "Our guns are primed, loaded and ready when everyone else is!" Came the unambiguous affirmatives from the comms.

After the recent successes the turians (and by extension, the Citadel forces) were having against their newest foe, any sort of doubt they had against Lina had effectively dissipated by now, replaced with the trust reserved for admirals that truly deserved it. Hearing her subordinates speak without a tinge of reluctance in their tones felt absolutely heavenly to the admiral's ears.

Several seconds passed, and the turian vessels continued to gnaw on the 314 forces. When the turians are now within spitting distance of the prime vessel, suddenly, the alien ships abruptly disengaged and skidded off to their sides, parting themselves and creating a wide-open space to the prime vessel itself.

Just as quick as the sudden turn of events transpired, prime vessel's portside hull quickly slid off to the side, which revealed a full compartment of nasty-looking, hull-mounted weaponry. Short barrelled and cumbersome-looking, the weapons appear unfit for use at long-ranged fighting, but gave an air of dread at close-quarters combat.

It took less than four seconds for the prime vessel to let loose with all its got. Several turian vessels directly in front of the hull guns were obliterated in a matter of moments, and even the commanding captain's ship was caught in energy weapons fire. Soon after, the alien vessels that were not engaged with any sort of opponents started to focus their attention on the surprised turian attack group.

Lina knew that her attack failed to even leave a dent on the prime vessel, but they achieved their objectives nonetheless. With most of the alien vessels participating on the portside flank defense, the starboard flank was left considerably exposed than before.

"All dreadnoughts, fire at will!" Lina ordered as she marked the prime vessel for destruction on her holoconsole.

Instantaneously, the dreadnoughts _Destiny Ascension, Might of Zethorus, Scholar _and _Tritonadeus_ let loose their main armaments. The mass accelerated rounds didn't stay in flight for long like the enemy plasma fire did. The turian projectiles did their work on the prime vessel's hull, but as expected, even with dreadnought cannons, the damage meted out to the enemy dreadnought didn't end up splitting the vessel in two; 'only' making several large, gnarly hull ruptures. In comparison, a normal turian dreadnought would've been already put out of commission from such a savage attack.

After some time, the target dreadnought moved, evidently to turn to its foes and to hide its severely damaged starboard hull. Fortunately for the Citadel's defenders, the act of making such a massive construct take a ninety-degree turn took as long as one would expect.

With her dreadnoughts' main guns stuck on the reloading phase, Lina resorted to using her innumerable cruisers to press on with her advantage. "Cruisers let fly! I want those guns glowing _red!_" She cried out.

And glow red did the CDF's guns did; dozens upon dozens of combined Citadel vessels simultaneously let loose with their main armaments, emptying their rounds into the enemy super dreadnought. After going through such a colossal amount of punishment from the dreadnoughts, the target ship's hull near-instantaneously caved in to the assault. In less than a few seconds, the prime vessel's starboard hull was riddled with uncountable amounts of uneven breaches and structural ruptures, but to every turian's exasperated disbelief, it stubbornly remained in one piece.

But before the final barrage was struck on the dreadnought, abruptly, a protective covering of purple energies erupted from seemingly within the vessel, handily saving it from imminent destruction. By now, the ship had nearly made the turn to face its attackers up front.

"What the hell?" Nandrakan muttered, staring at the prime vessel as if it suddenly patched its shattered hull back up. "All ships, keep up the fire, damn it! Bring that shield down!"

The whole turian response fleet took a few seconds to comply. All functional guns were discharged hastily by each ship's gunnery crews, and the ensuing projectiles impacted the alien super dreadnought's frontal hull this time around. The ship sustained damage still, but with the protection offered by the strange purple shield, and the untarnished armored plating the dreadnought possessed at its front, the attack was nowhere near as effective as it was before.

Having managed to turn to its foes completely, in retaliation, the prime vessel fired its main gun with such precision, that two cruisers were rendered into scorching derelicts when a massive beam of whitish-orange energy pierced right through the side of their hull and escaped out the other side. Before long, the spacefight between the Citadel forces and the aliens raged even fiercer. It was clear that the aliens are getting desperate, and sure enough, they fought with such ferocity and viciousness that almost made them krogan.

…

_**Inner Council Chambers – The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1910 hours**_

_**Councilor Tevos – one of the very few Council-affiliated individuals still alive in the Chambers area**_

With her ears ringing from being in close proximity with one too many explosions, hands shaking from continuous weapon use and her head wracked with a terrible migraine from constant use of her biotics, Councilor Tevos tiredly sat down on a public bench. It was blasted in half by a wayward plasma bolt, but for some reason, the bench's other half remained as pristine as before.

"Relaika reported that one of her fire-teams took out another one of the impostor-aliens playing dead," Sparatus said as he approached the asari councillor. He was escorted by the last surviving members of his retinue. "A pity that we can't salvage anything useful from the alien dead besides these grenades. The things we could learn from their firearms alone."

"Yes… a pity, t-that." Tevos slightly stuttered as she concurred. It seems that she had been a politician for too long, and her days as an elite commando seemed like a fever dream now; live combat appears to have had her completely terrified. Still, the councilor couldn't complain that she was still alive. "Heh, I still can't believe they did this," She feebly gestured to the devastation around her.

Corpses lay haphazardly heaped where they fell. Fires from all over the area raged unrestrained, and in some areas, venomous clouds of poison continued to linger. It'd be a nightmare to sort everything out. Indeed, it'd take several years before the Citadel could return to a state remotely resembling normalcy.

"But we sure did make the bastards bleed for it, haven't we?" Sparatus said, taking his spot on a corrugated steel post and leaning on it. The soldiers he had for protection all took relaxed stances on where they stood; they felt that there's no more need for vigilance, after everything they've gone through.

"And I still can't believe we actually won that fight…" Tevos muttered, her stare off into the horizon.

"Either our plan worked better than we intended, or we caught them by complete surprise. Hell, I don't care how we're still alive, I'm just glad we are." Sparatus responded. He took a deep breath, taking in the scents of a freshly concluded skirmish and lingering plasma.

Moments later, Colonel Relaika's form appeared in the distance. Thick blankets of black smoke obscured her figure, but it was clear that she was suspiciously alone; the guardsmen she had for soldiers earlier weren't beside her.

Sparatus shrugged, chalking the guardsmen's absence to patrol duty. After all, there might be wounded survivors still intermixed with the dead. He instead focused on the wholesale destruction that is the Chambers. "We should've been smarter. If we told the rest of the Council races about this crisis we're going through, we might've been more prepared to deal with this mess."

"Indeed you should have," Tevos agreed, her tone somewhat harsher than normal. "This disaster could've been avoided at day one, you know. Instead of blundering about and shooting everything you see in sight, you could've used diplomatic approaches to these aliens. After all, they should have no knowledge about our little rule about the relays."

Sparatus shook his head and tilted it to the side to greet the approaching asari colonel. "If I was there, I could've done… just… that…"

The turian councilor trailed off when he saw Relaika, now on the floor, reduced to nothing but a charred, blackened mess. By the time the first few shouts of warning came out of his mouth, a sudden crushing, fist-like force on Sparatus' throat caused him to swallow his words as he reeled away in pain. He fought off his body's urges to drop down unconscious to take a good look at his attacker, but in spite of having a relatively clear view of the area in front of him, he saw no definite signs of his assailant.

Before the councilor could do anything else, another invisible force directed at his left shoulder made itself painfully apparent, but this time, it was accompanied by a splash of his own blood bespattering the side of his face.

Sparatus had just enough time to look to his left and see the chitinous, jagged thorn jammed deep into his shoulder – deep enough that its horrible pointed end was visibly protruding out the other side of its entry point. A millisecond later, he was forcefully put down by another solid force that struck him down from above his head.

It was then that a cloaked figure came into view – a plasma pistol streaked in blue turian blood clutched in one gauntleted hand, and a chryssalid spike coated in his own red blood on the other, metallic one.

…

_**Inner Council Chambers – The Citadel**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1910 hours**_

_**Councilor Tevos**_

Tevos watched in horrified shock and confusion as Sparatus suddenly seemed to be beset by an invisible attacker. She watched as the air shimmered in front of her turian colleague, taking the vague outline of an armored figure.

Once the figure had lodged some sort of spike into Sparatus' shoulder, it reeled back its arm and struck the councilor's head with the blunt object it was holding. Sparatus did a single spin before his body hit the floor, just as the figure's cloak ran out of charge.

It was one of the alien soldiers – the leader, to be more precise. Even when fully armored, the extent of the abuse the alien received from his enemies was painful to look at; several holes and ruptures were scattered all over the alien's armored suit, to which blood sometimes leaked out of. The helmet he wore had its faceplate partially shattered, and it looked like it was still attached to the rest of the armor only by damaged strips of alien steel. Lastly and more terrifyingly, numerous barbs of the same type the alien used against Sparatus seemed to jut out of his armor – giving him the look of a pincushion. It was a miracle that the alien still stood on its feet as it is.

Just as Sparatus' unconscious form hit the ground, before Tevos and her guardsmen escorts could react, the alien had made his move. He went down on one knee and shot two guardsmen in quick succession, before dropping a pre-primed grenade at his feet.

Tevos and the guardsmen now had their weapons trained downrange on the alien, who only reacted by tapping his helmet for some unknown reason. Just as the first volley of shots flew, everyone with their eyes open suddenly found their visions impaired by a lingering white flash, and their hearing deafened by repetitive ringing.

The asari councilor could barely hear the sounds of dying guardsmen over the ringing in her ears as the alien soldier did his work unimpeded. By the time she opened her eyes, the alien had just finished off each and every one of the Council guardsmen in the area in lightning-fast combat maneuvers that could cause elite Azure Guard commandos to shrink away in envy. With most of the allied soldiers in her immediate vicinity either dead or too injured to fight, to her terror, Tevos quickly found out that she was now all alone against the alien soldier.

Banishing her fears and acting as quick as she could, Tevos unleashed every ounce of her biotic might onto her adversary. Predictably, the alien was sent flying from the sheer force that overwhelmed his form. He crashed not far from the councilor, near a ruined column. Not taking any chances, Tevos hurriedly tried to reach for the rifle she had unthinkingly thrown to the ground the moment she was blinded by the flash grenade.

Her efforts were for naught, however. The alien soldier had shaken off the further injuries he received enough to be able to stand on one knee and take careful aim with the only weapon he still possessed: his iron hand.

Tevos should've been already dead in the next few seconds. She would've been reduced to nothing but a blackened mark on the Chambers floor, virtually unrecognizable by mere sight. Fortunately for her, Sparatus was already on his feet. The turian councilor, with a spike still lodged in his shoulder, tackled the alien to the floor, messing up the shot that would've killed yet another councilor.

Sparatus might've saved Tevos' life, but the alien's reprisal was swift. By the time it took Tevos to retrieve her rifle and take a firing position on her opponent, the alien had already jabbed his armored elbow into Sparatus' gut, deflected a clumsy retaliatory strike from the turian and delivered his own gauntleted blow to his opponent's face to throw him off… all in the alien soldier's preparation for his finishing set of moves, which involved in him viciously seizing Sparatus' collar, picking him up from the ground, and finally, smashing him back into the ground with such force, that Sparatus' body gave out a very audible, stomach-turning _crunch_ as he impacted the ruined floor.

…

_**Inner Council Chambers – X-Ray Sierra**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1915 hours**_

_**Agent Gerhardt – under the influence of the Mk XVII 'Last Resort' Combat Stim**_

Gerhardt could barely see through the hazy, gray-tinted vision from his eyes.

He was only scarcely aware of what he was going through. In his mind's semi-delirious state, he knew that it issued orders to his body, commanding it to shoulder on with his objectives despite the near-fatal injuries it sustained. To his mild surprise, he actually made some good progress, as he still seemed to be as effective in combat as ever, even with his mind's impaired state. Occasionally, he'd sometimes feel the receiving end of bullets or other projectiles striking his armor, but with the amount of stims coursing through his bloodstream, he barely suffered them.

Of course, he knew full well of just how screwed he is. His enemies grossly outnumbered him, and his successes would only prove to be minor kills in the long run. Gerhardt could only wait until either the enemy ultimately swamps him in their numbers, or the Last Resort's effects wore off, allowing him to finally throw himself to the ground, curl up into a ball of built-up pain and wait in agony before one of the aliens could walk up to him, rifle in hand, and put him out of his miserable state.

He could only hope that XCOM learns from this mistake. Director Faust needs to learn how to analyze a situation thoroughly before sending in the agents. That way, this whole endeavor might have been a success, and civilian casualties might have been zero.

"Davian!" Gerhardt heard a panicked voice in Vextrenese. Its unexpected clarity threw him off guard.

However, the stims still had near-complete control of the agent's body. His body tensed up as it lunged at the source of the voice, ready to put its owner into an unenviable position – the receiving end of his hand-to-hand training.

"S-stay back! Just stay back!" Gerhardt continued to hear from the strangely feminine voice as he perceived the sound of bullets pinging off his armor. With the abuse it's been through, it's a genuine miracle that it hadn't already fallen apart around his body. Suddenly, as he was in the middle of the bullet barrage he was subjected to, he felt as if he was thrown back by some invisible force, just like the feeling he experienced a few minutes ago. Now, he sensed that his head was now fully exposed to his surroundings. His helmet must've been knocked off by something.

Despite this, he felt his legs continuing their functions. This time, they weren't striding at a slow pace anymore.

"Just w-walk away!" The voice continued to plead with him. "There's nothing more for you to accomplish! Haven't you had enough of all this meaningless death and ruination?"

Gerhardt wished he could reply in kind. He was trapped in his own body as it moved without his consent. In all honesty, he's had enough. He was more than happy to be put down by rifle fire, or better, he was more than happy to just throw his arms down and escape the station with his life. The agent was past caring about what his superiors would say to him; after all, the alien councilors could already be dead, for all he knows.

_And so are the rest of my men,_ he mentally added. _I'm all alone now._

"Please! _Please _don't do this!" Gerhardt was snapped out of his thoughts when the voice spoke again. It wasn't very muffled or distorted anymore, and in fact, it was clear enough to hear the sheer desperation and despair put into it.

_Don't do it,_ he told his disobedient shell. _We've already done so much. We need to stop here! _His body still didn't respond. He tried harder to will his body to his control once more, but to no avail.

"The turians were right about you," The voice now took a steely tone, catching Gerhardt by surprise at how it quickly shifted from weakness and fearfulness.

"No worse than… savages." It continued. It still sounded defiant, but it was significantly weaker and wispier than before. It's as if its words were spoken with great difficulty. "You… are all _monsters_… only superior to us by technology…"

_No!_ Gerhardt all but shouted in his mind. _We didn't endure so much from the real fiends just to become monsters ourselves. We're better than that!_

Gerhardt's hazy vision started to clear up little by little. He could now make the vague outline of an angular face – one very similar to that of a human.

_This isn't right! We are not monsters!_

Finally, Gerhardt had wrested control of his own body back. The first thing he did was to close his eyes for a few seconds before opening them right back. What he saw next made his stomach lurch; what he was doing all but invalidated what he thought about his own race.

"Your contempt for us… will be the death of your race." The alien woman choked out as Gerhardt's metal hand continued to close in on her neck. Blood very visibly trailed down the sharp, talon-like ends of each of the digits that poked her skin like needles, and not to mention, horrid bruises and injuries seemingly inflicted by the agent himself marked her features. "Why… are you taking too long… just to kill me?"

The moment the last word left the alien's mouth, Gerhardt immediately released her from his ironclad grip. The first actions she took were predictable; she sucked in deep, ragged breaths in an effort to oxygenate herself as fast as possible.

Gerhardt stumbled back in his shock as the alien desperately tried to catch her breath. His unbalanced body clumsily fell on its rear when his foot tripped over an amphibian soldier's dead body. With his mind going around in frantic, confusing circles, Gerhardt stared at the woman – the _alien _woman.

It wasn't long before he was struck by the realization that he just refrained from killing an alien – the very same thing that he's supposed to kill and later conduct autopsies on, in order to protect humanity and further advance its technological state. His options immediately presented themselves on his exhausted mind. The options were many, but it all came down to two things: he could either draw his Garamond-Sergey aug, level it at the alien, set the amperes to maximum and rectify his mistake, or he could just find an extraction point and call for the _Journeyman_ to send a shuttle to come retrieve him and leave the station.

Of course, the latter choice appealed to him more than the former choice. The most logical course of action now is to retreat, since it appears that none of the XCOM strike team even survived besides himself – making it very unlikely that he'll ever accomplish any further objectives. Killing an alien he had just spared would be a waste of time and aug charge, but more importantly, it would only prove to Gerhardt that his kind had indeed degenerated to the same level as the ethereals had.

The agent shook his head, shaking off the last remnants of the drugs in his system. He prepared himself to pull himself up on his feet and move out, when the alien suddenly spoke in some sort of language that his translators didn't recognize. Her words sounded lyrical and expressive – leagues different than the gruff, plainspoken turian language she had been using earlier. Why she stopped talking in Vextrenese, Gerhardt didn't know.

Gerhardt looked down on the alien from his half-standing position. She was now looking at him with a curious – yet still anxious – expression on her bruised face.

The agent closed his eyes and sighed. He then turned back to the alien and adopted a remorseful frown on his unhelmeted face.

"I'm not a monster," He said in Vextrenese, as simple as he could.

"This was a mistake," He gestured at the death and destruction around the Chambers. "I'm _sorry_."

Gerhardt noted how the alien's expression changed to that of amazed surprise, before it turned into a somewhat astonished form of acknowledgement. The agent nodded and turned his back. He started to make his way out of the Chambers, following the corpse trail of his own men.

"Take the emergency exit to the left," Gerhardt heard the alien calling out to him from the distance. "It should lead you to the docking ports. Hurry, before more of the soldiers arrive!"

…

_**FNWS Annihilation**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1920 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Draynor**_

"Sir, the clones won't last much longer under these conditions!"

Draynor snapped his head from his comms console linked to the _Annihilation_'s gunnery crews and to the psioempathic officer, who was clutching his head in one hand and wiping a trail of blood leaking out of his nose with the other. "Give us fifteen more minutes, captain! Don't let those sectoids die on us until I say so!"

The officer weakly nodded. "I'll try my best… sir." He promptly staggered off to the elevator, presumably to tend to the cloned Sectoid Commanders that provided the _Annihilation_'s emergency psionic shields.

The idea of using cloned psionic aliens as a way to prevent a ship's destruction was first realized on the _Annihilation_, as the sheer size of the super dreadnought allowed it to house the complicated machineries and apparatuses needed to keep the Gifted clones alive and functioning despite spacefight conditions. Having been saved by the clones' psionic abilities earlier had produced a feeling of gratitude on Draynor's mind to the ethereals, no matter how wrong and absurd he thought it was.

"Admiral, some of the merc ships just broke formation," An officer reported. "They're setting a course straight for Sierra!"

Draynor scowled in vexation. "Open up a comms channel to Chevalier, would you? And somebody put that blasted fire out!" He shouted, pointing at a ruptured, burning console at one corner of the bridge.

"Admiral?" Principal Fleet Coordinator Chevalier spoke over the comms, just as a comms officer opened up a channel to the Federal Navy's XCOM allies. "I assume you've addressed us to discuss over something important. What would you ask of your trusty allies, then?"

The fleet admiral was put off by the classical music that assaulted his ears, but he could tolerate Chevalier's eccentricities, if only barely. "A few of your ships, led by the _Journeyman_, are heading right for the godforsaken station we're trying – and failing – to take. Care to enlighten us about that decision?"

"Extraction," Chevalier answered. "It seems that the agents I've sent stationside weren't killed to a man after all. Any information these agents could provide on the station's interiors or inner workings would be invaluable."

"How did they do on their _original_ objective, then?" Draynor uneasily asked.

Chevalier sighed disappointedly. "That remains to be heard. We'll bring you an update on that late—"

"Jesus, our sternside flank's been breached!" A tech officer frantically shouted. Draynor whipped his head to the strategic map, and found that indeed, there was a large gaping hole on his makeshift rearmost defences.

"Multiple hostile contacts are pouring in from the breach! Our ships can't hold!" The officer turned his head to Draynor. The admiral remembered him as one of the most courageous of the men he commanded in the bridge. Seeing his eyes almost completely swamped in primal fear was very disconcerting. "What do we do, sir?!"

The fleet admiral grimaced in anger. He looked absolutely livid as he marched briskly to the bridge's windows – the ones that faced the direction of the reinforcing turian fleet, the biggest thorn on his side throughout the operation. By now, the alien ships have advanced to his own fleet close enough that he could see the lot of them clearly enough. However, Draynor instead focused on the stylized Vextrenese letters emblazoned over at his new nemesis' side.

_Legionnaire,_ Draynor noted the name of the largest dreadnought present within the alien fleet, searing it firmly within his memory. _We'll see each other again, soon._ He sighed, shaking off his infuriated expression and taking a more composed stance.

Draynor then turned on his heel and directed his attention back to his men. He broadcasted his voice to the whole fleet over the comms. "Fleet, disregard all previous orders and form up on the _Journeyman_'s flanks! From now on, our objective is to protect the _Journeyman_ as it extracted the remnants of the stationside forces!"

Draynor turned back to Chevalier, who was most likely as surprised as the rest of the ship captains under the fleet admiral. "We've got your backs covered for now. Make sure your agents could make it out of there alive, coordinator. _Then_ this whole fuckup of an operation _might_ not have been a total loss."

Chevalier hesitated to answer for seconds, but when he replied, he was more than unruffled. "Of course, admiral."

…

_**Mikkosza Wards, Dockyard Area – X-Ray Sierra One**_

_**July 19th, 2157 – 1925 hours**_

_**Master Field Agent/Colonel Annette Durand, Great Ethereal War veteran, Operation: Avenger participant – on search and rescue**_

"Operators! Get this ship in the air and out of sight!" Agent Durand shouted at the _Journeyman_'s pilots as the rescue team under her command jumped off the airlock. "Don't wait for us! We'll call you when we've got the packages!"

After the last XCOM agent left via airlock, immediately, the _XSF Journeyman_ took to the air and sped off. It disappeared after obliterating an alien anti-ship turret emplacement with a single volley of its hull-mounted blaster launchers.

As their armored boots impacted the floor with resounding thuds, Durand's team was already in action. "Kingpin, Longbow and Specter, bunker down here and form up a defensive perimeter. From now on, this is our fall-back position."

"Yes, ma'am!" Three agents, a heavy weapons specialist and two marksmen, gave their affirmatives and deployed their mobile plasma barriers on the ground for additional cover.

"Spitfire, take command of Strike Two and go look for our objectives to our eastern flank. Expect resistance, but not as much. Strike One will be taking most of the heat for this op." Durand ordered, just as she powered up the rest of her armor's combat assistance systems.

A shotgun-wielding soldier nodded and pulled her open visor down. "We'll get it done, Durand."

Durand then directed her attention to a burly agent, hefting an infantryman's blaster launcher on his shoulders. She powered up her omni-tool and displayed a projection of the local area. "Sledge, I need Strike Three dispersed and in position on these areas,"

The psionic soldier highlighted three areas in blue on her omni-tool. "Beside this commercial building over here, here on this security outpost's rooftop, and right here, just a few meters to the west of some kind of arms depot. Keep your eyes open for any hostile activity, and most importantly, don't engage any hostile force you come across unless you've been compromised. The usual rules of engagement apply, so don't hesitate to use lethal force."

"Hell, save some of the xenos for us, ma'am." The explosives specialist nicknamed 'Sledge' grumbled. "I know that you've got a bone to pick with them, but really, it's not every day the director gives you the thumbs-up to use one of these bad boys." He roughly tapped the side of his primary weapon.

Durand smirked, and her eyes started to glow a bright purple. It's been a hundred and fifty years since she had a chance to have a go at the aliens again, and truly, she missed her experiences dearly. In fact, such was Durand's bloodlust for butchering aliens that in an instant, she came out of her fifty-year retirement from XCOM just so she could experience everything all over again when an encrypted message marked with the lovingly familiar XCOM emblem had mysteriously appeared on her extranet account's mailbox one day.

"I can't make any promises, soldier. You'll just have to wait and see if we left behind some scraps." She crooned, and her eyes started to go back to their usual brownish-orange color.

Taking the first step into the depths of the Wards, Durand looked to her team. "Strike One, let's see if these aliens could survive without intestines, shall we?"

…

_**Mikkosza Wards, Commercial Area – X-Ray Sierra One**_

_**July 19**__**th**__**, 2157 – 1925 hours**_

_**Agent Gerhardt**_

"Hey look, there he is! After the bastard!" A turian soldier shouted, taking aim with her sniper rifle at Gerhardt and firing, only for her bullet to miss narrowly, splattering the agent's armor with the pieces of the wall that it struck.

A turian officer sprinted after the agent, taking potshots all the way. "All surviving units, this is Vakarian!" Gerhardt heard him talking over the comm-device built on his gauntlet.

"We've found an alien straggler making a run for it, he's heading for the dockyards; I repeat, he's going for the Mikkosza dockyards, over!"

_Shit, _Gerhardt inwardly cursed. _They'll cut me off if I move any fucking slower!_

With all the wounds and the exhaustion he was suffering, Gerhardt was slowly overtaken by the turian officer. Thankfully, the rest of the soldiers tracking him had all lagged far behind. It was just him and the persistent cop.

"Do you _really_ want to do this, turian?!" With ragged breaths, the agent all but screamed at his pursuer. "You _really_ don't wanna do this!"

The officer was momentarily surprised when the alien talked to him, but it seemed that the sheer amount of surprises he had seen this day had hardened him enough from further unexpected things.

"I reckon I do! Stop running and submit!" He breathed out. "I can assure you… I'll make sure... you'll receive… a fair… _trial_!" His breaths are far more ragged than Gerhardt's, but he stubbornly persisted.

"No, how about _you_ stop running!" The agent lamely countered, feeling too exhausted to come up with a wittier response. "We're both tired… and we both… have our own jobs to do! Didn't you see… the wounded civilians… you just ran past?!"

"Huurgh… why… did you do this!" The turian continued pursuing the agent as he asked. "This is… a civilian station… for the Spirits' sake!" Unexpectedly, he tripped over an XCOM trooper's corpse, hitting the dirt and accidentally striking his head on a protruding piece of rubble. His head struck the rubble so hard, that Gerhardt heard it as he ran.

This was his chance, Gerhardt thought. The officer should take more than the time he needed to lose him in Sierra One's rubble-filled corridors, but for some reason, he felt something that urged him to do the opposite – go back and help the officer up to his feet, and make sure he's alright.

_Oh, screw it._ Despite his situation, the agent chose the stupidest option he could do, help the enemy up to his feet. Running back after making sure that no other alien was nearby, Gerhardt found the turian officer where he last saw him, still on a prone position.

As his mind continued to call him out for his stupidity, Gerhardt slowly took hold of the alien's head fringe, intending to flip him over to see if he could be brought to consciousness. He never saw the turian's tackle coming.

Finding himself on his back and with a pistol pressed to his unprotected head, Gerhardt was in a situation that he could've easily avoided if he just ran.

"I'm impressed, I never expected you to come running back," The alien said, propping himself up to a standing position while clutching one bleeding side of his head. "You're a credit to your race, alien. You actually seem to have a conscience."

Gerhardt frowned, but a moment later, he burst out laughing in weakened breaths. The turian's head tilted itself to the side in perplexity. "Okay, take it easy now. Does your kind start laughing whenever they should instead be—"

"Weapons free! Open FIRE!" An unmistakably human voice shouted in English.

Instantly, Gerhardt was in action. "Shit, get the fuck down!" He shoved the turian standing on top of him onto a still-smoldering trench on the ground. Literally just milliseconds later, plasma fire and mass-accelerated projectiles flew in the air. It seems that reinforcements from both sides have arrived.

The turian officer propped himself on a crouching position after tapping out the flames dancing around on his armor. Gerhardt helped him up as quickly as he could.

"You should get out of here." The agent told the officer, handing him his pistol. "That's my ride up there. I'll get them to fall back when I reach them, don't worry. You won't see any more of us after that."

The turian remained silent, however. He kept staring at Gerhardt as if in shock.

The agent sighed. "Over there," With a metallic finger, he gestured to the north. "That's where your kind is. I'll run for my own side first. When the plasma fire stops flying, start running." Gerhardt prepared to start running for all his worth, but he turned his head to the alien he saved one last time.

"Good luck to both of us, I guess." With that said, Gerhardt activated the last of his cloak charge and sprinted for the human side.

…

_**Mikkosza Wards, Commercial-Dockyard Area, the Citadel**_

_**July 19**__**th**__**, 2157 – 1935 hours**_

_**Lieutenant Investigator Vakarian**_

When the alien suddenly faded from sight right before his eyes, Tertius was still staring at where he should be, had he not disappeared. Not only had what should be an enemy of his race tried to save his life twice over, but he actually succeeded in doing so once, when he actually needed saving.

Truly, this day has been full of surprises. Tertius would normally count this day as a terrible day for he hated surprises, but now, he wasn't so sure it was all that bad. Today had been horrible, yes; a lot of innocent civilians and Council soldiers had been killed, but it sure was refreshing to have experienced a pleasant surprise for once.

The alien told him to wait for the gunfire to stop, and wait he did. He avoided the flames around him, and the gunfire above him. He hoped hard that he wouldn't suddenly find a primed grenade falling on his lap like a cruel gift from the heavens above.

It nearly took him fifteen minutes of waiting. The firing slowed down to a complete halt, and it appears that the alien made good with his promise; shouts from asari commandos and salarian soldiers were heard coming from above. It wasn't long before a helmeted turian head looked down at Tertius' hiding place.

"Well, look what we have here!" Officer Naralka removed her helmet. "Lieutenant, what are you doing down there all by yourself?"

Tertius shook his head. "Now's not the time, sergeant. Help me up."

Naralka removed herself from sight for a few seconds before returning, sniper rifle in hand. "Here, Vakarian. Hold on to this." She held down her rifle for the lieutenant investigator to take, barrel first.

"Don't you think that's a bit unsafe?" Tertius said, looking back and forth at Naralka and her rifle.

"This one's too overheated to work, sir." Naralka informed. "She won't fire any time soon, but the barrel's a little bit scorched. I hope your gloves haven't got holes in them."

Seeing his other options to be less than convenient, Tertius rubbed his hands together and held on to the rifle's barrel. Several agonizing seconds later, Naralka helped the lieutenant up and out of his trench.

Tertius scrambled up to his feet and came upon a terrible sight. The aliens didn't depart as quietly as he had hoped, it seems. For every one dead alien, about seven Council soldiers can be found on the ground, dead.

"Yeah, it's quite a sight, isn't it sir?" Naralka said as she sat on the remains of a collapsed wall. "Dead count's just up in the Chambers area. Almost all of the Council guardsmen are dead, and one of the councilors just bit it. Don't know which, though."

Tertius said nothing. He slowly walked up to a nearby window, one that's fortunate enough not to be damaged. Looking through it, he saw the alien fleet still in combat, but it appears that they're intending to withdraw.

A streak of blue light lanced across the void for a moment, before impacting one of the heavily damaged alien cruisers. It didn't take long before the vessel broke into two after a green explosion sent shockwaves that shook Tertius from where he stood. He had to shield his eyes from the brightness, in fact.

"And there's another one!" A voice over the comms triumphantly shouted. "All ships, keep at it! Drive them back to the damned relay! No quarter!"

"NO QUARTER!" The overwhelming response from the rest of the Council fleet came in. Tertius looked behind him and saw that the stationside forces are also shouting and cheering at the combined asari, turian and salarian fleet outside the Citadel.

"This day is ours, Vakarian!" Naralka said, taking her place beside the lieutenant. "Who said that simple cops can't get things done, huh? Look at them run!" She pantomimed shooting one of the fleeing alien vessels with her ruined rifle.

Tertius merely shook his head in both amusement and annoyance. "I reckon we've earned ourselves a week's worth of drinking for what we've done. Hell, I'm buying for once."

Through all the hardships the Council forces had endured, thanks to their valiant efforts and sacrifices, the day has just been won.

…

_**LOCAL CLUSTER/SOL SYSTEM**_

_**XSF Journeyman, Shuttle Hangar – exiting Sol Relay**_

_**July 19**__**th**__**, 2157 – 2000 hours**_

_**Agent Durand**_

"Alright, we just left the relay! Everybody, stop holding hands and postpone your panicking. We're safe now." Blue Sky, the _Journeyman_'s pilot, reported over the comms. "That was bloody well close, too. Any minute more, and our fleets would've been shredded!"

With relief, Durand gasped out the breath she was holding for several seconds now. She all but collapsed on the seat next to one of the only survivors her rescue team recovered, Master Field Agent von Rosshart. When Durand and her team first found him, his physical condition was appalling – it appeared that he was in the point-blank radius of a needle grenade's detonation, and in general, he looked like a walking corpse. It took a monumental amount of meds and stimpaks to restore Gerhardt's health to a more stable state. After the medics made sure that he won't suddenly croak and die from his wounds, the agent seemed to be more or less strong enough to walk on his own, thanks to his heavily augmented body's built-in regenerative implants.

"That was a bit too close for comfort, eh?" She told the agent, who remained silent as ever. He held his hands in a contemplative manner, as if he just saw something he wanted to forget. Deciding that doing a little probing around in his head wasn't worth the effort, Durand sank further into her seat.

"That was a mistake," Suddenly, the agent spoke. "We shouldn't have done that."

Durand shifted on her seat to look at Gerhardt. She flipped her visor up, exposing her eyes. "What, you think you should've died down there? Look, I know what it feels like to lose soldiers – friends. It's far from pleasant, but—"

"Though the loss of my comrades was painful, they weren't what's on my mind, no." Gerhardt responded, his voice soft and wispy. "You can poke around in my head if you want. Maybe you'll understand, ma'am."

"Please, just call me Annette. Getting called 'ma'am' reminds me of how old I've become." Durand half-joked, in an effort to relieve some stress. She waited a few seconds before initiating contact with the agent's mind, viewing all the things he saw inside the station.

"I can see… bodies." Durand talked, her eyes giving off a faint purple glow. "_Alien_ bodies. A whole courtyard filled with them."

Gerhardt bitterly frowned. "Look at their bodies more closely – they're not wearing armor. They're civilians, Annette."

Durand huffed. "Civilians or not, they're still aliens. I can't think of anything wrong with this image, really. Actually, I think your team did a pretty good job killing aliens – at this point, accomplishing your original objectives would be just a bonus."

The agent sighed. "You have to be there to understand…" He murmured, low enough so as to be heard only by himself.

…

_**FNWS Annihilation, Command Bridge – in orbit of Station Gamma**_

_**July 19**__**th**__**, 2157 – 2030 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Draynor**_

In the deserted command bridge, only one person was present. He slumped on his seat with a look of mixed anger and betrayal, taking intermittent puffs from his cigarette.

"Admiral? Admiral! Are you there?" Chevalier's voice could be heard talking over Draynor's personal channel. "The docking bay authorities are asking you if the resupply and repair teams are cleared to work on the fleet. They're waiting for your prompt."

Draynor didn't answer back. He merely sat upon his command seat, not moving a single inch.

"Norman, you need to face facts," Chevalier persisted. "We just lost an engagement. Do you honestly think that your career's going to be as flawless as you think it'd be? Every admiral must learn to accept defeat, and from his defeats, he must learn how to _prevent_ further defeats from ever happening again."

Draynor felt inclined to respond, but he closed his mouth and continued brooding in silence. Soon, he heard Chevalier sighing in disgust and defeat.

"If things go on like this, I doubt that our future will bode well for us, admiral. Don't forget, you're one of the best we've got. Please don't squander your skills just because things didn't go your way. Chevalier out." The XCOM Fleet Coordinator logged off the comms.

The fleet admiral sighed. He spat out the half-finished cigarette from his mouth, took his coat from where he haphazardly dropped it from the floor and strode off, out of the bridge.

_To the first bastard who brought me down, I'll give you my hat! _The words of a significantly younger Draynor echoed through his mind as he stomped off, and a small smile formed on his lips. For every step he took, his footfalls became increasingly less forceful, before they became just as silent as _Annihilation_'s deserted corridors.

* * *

**XCOM DATABASE: **

**I. Instability**

Since humanity had left their home system, spread their populations across the stars and had come to be governed by the Federation government, there had been several citizens who had been very vocal about their extreme disapproval of how the government had been running the systems under its control. XCOM agents have investigated this issue, and found that some of these citizens were actually EXALT agents, hoping to instigate a massive rebellion against the Federation government under the guise of a homesteader uprising.

However, it appears that most of these upstarts actually believed in what they preached about. The most prominent reason as to why these citizens are protesting about the government seemed to be how the Federation leaders are casually dropping the majority of the taxes they received from hardworking citizens into the navy's military budget, in seeming preparation from an incoming second ethereal invasion.

All in all, the ultimate objective for most of the rebellions seemed to be the complete and utter separation of the planet they were protesting on from the Federation government ー independence, in other words. The right to impose their own laws and establish their own nation, one that's significantly less oppressive than the Federation, as they promised.

As of 2157, fringe world rebellions have massively increased in frequency and intensity. There was little doubt that the rebels are hoping to utilize the chaos of an alien attack to further their causes. Once again, EXALT is suspected to be playing a key role in this crisis. **_  
_**

**II. The Draynor Raid (Operation: Subversion for XCOM agents, as designated by Central)**

A massive undertaking formulated by XCOM Director Tyrone Faust and named after Federal Navy Admiral Norman Draynor, this operation was planned to be a single graceful stroke by a combined XCOM and Federation Navy force to eliminate several alien leaders deep within their own territory.

Acting upon damaged and/or incomplete intel recovered from turian vessel wrecks and from mind-probing captured enemy personnel, Federation scientist Dr. Oda Kobayashi theorized that a giant military hub housing three alien leaders was a key target to delivering a mortal blow to the turian warmachine. The doctor claimed that the destruction of this alien hub would bring about a great loss of morale upon the alien forces, while simultaneously boosting allied morale.

Hearing news of this, Director Faust conferred with his most trusted advisors for several days before coming up with a plan to carry out an offensive:

First, the fleets stationed in several dozen battlefronts would be given a small amount of elite siegebreaker reinforcements before being ordered to initiate their offensives into overdrive, intending to tie down as many of the alien fleets in combat.

The second part of the plan is where two joint fleets of XCOM and Federation vessels, utilizing the disordered and occupied state of the alien fleets to their advantage, would stealthily relocate themselves right next to the closest mass relay to the alien hub, which had been dubbed as 'X-Ray Sierra One'.

The third and final part of the venture is for the XCOM detachment to send in field agents stationside, led by a MFA and supplemented by Generation Three thin man clones for fire support, and for the spaceborne fleets to engage and eliminate any turian forces providing resistance, in an effort to defend Sierra One.

Overall, the best case scenario was a swift accomplishment of all objectives; the station is under human hands, any sort of useable alien tech are ripe for reverse-engineering, and the alien leaders are all confirmed to be captured or KIA.

The endeavor was a near-complete disaster for the humans. Even from the very start, matters did not go according to the plan, to put it lightly.

The turians put up a very astonishing display of organization and resistance when faced with the siegebreakers at the battlefronts, it appeared that they were learning more about human tactics and strategem, and had accordingly adjusted their own tactics to counter them. Federation forces gained some territory when the turians abandoned them, but at the cost of heavy losses. However in the end, the original objective was accomplished; most of the turian forces were relocated to the battlefronts, in order to stem the limitless human tide.

The second part of the plan also wasn't left unscathed from unforeseen consequences. A mere hour into the plan, a large force of marauding turian vessels thought to be stationed far from the area it was in, had spotted the two human fleets trying to access a secondary relay, deep within alien territory. The turians moved in to engage, but were swiftly wiped to a ship after their comms have been jammed and their messages intercepted and shot down. Sustaining moderate losses, the damaged human fleet shouldered on with their objectives.

Last but not least, the third part of the planned invasion was by far the biggest disaster that fell upon the humans for the entirety of the Third Contact War. The 'military' hub that housed the alien leaders also happened to be housing a rather staggering civilian population of 72% at the time, and the alien fleet defending the station, made out by Dr. Kobayashi as 'cowardly, terribly-disciplined and poorly-trained turians', turned out to be a heavily armed, highly-disciplined and trained alien force that consisted not only of turians, but also of two other alien races that appeared to be allied with the turians (more detail on these races on autopsy reports #005, the 'Salarian' and #006, the 'Asari').

The invasion of Sierra One went as planned for the first few hours, but as the time went on, alien reinforcements from seemingly nowhere had started emerging from the primary relay the humans had arrived out of earlier, resulting in a boxed human force. The tide of battle changed owners a multitude of times, but even with the possession of highly advanced weapons technology, the sheer amount of alien reinforcements pouring out of the relay overwhelmed the two human fleets. Cutting their losses and salvaging anything that's of worth, the humans made a brief offensive to retake the relay from alien hands in order to retreat, to which they succeeded at, after a few more losses.

In the aftermath of this invasion, comparisons have been made;

"What if the Doolittle Raid had been packing even heavier weaponry and numbers, but failed to achieve what it tried to accomplish?" A Federation official, Francis Neumann, said as he observed the devastated Federal Navy fleet through a vidscreen.

"It's like Operation Market Garden, just in space." An unknown colonial soldier was quoted as saying.

"About time you retards get taken down a peg or two," Said Hayden Thatch, a man living in downtown New Canberra. "Seriously, the Federation started out good, but now, it feels like it's startin' to take pages from Japan back in the 1930s. Too much militarism, but too little of everything else."

**III. Civilian opinions on aliens - Pt. 1**

Since the turian invasion of Shanxi, non-military personnel have made their opinions on the threat of aliens clear, or obvious. Whether they were asked for their input or not, it was very easy for undercover XCOM agents to determine what are they thinking about the aliens.

"I think we should give the Federation all of our support," Says Diana Girard, in Brussels, Belgium. "I mean, look at the mess the horrid aliens made back in the 21st century. Brazil had been completely flattened, some parts of Serbia and Bosnia are still irradiated, Turkey looks like it had been split on two from orbit, Burma was nearly wiped off the map and Ukraine, seeing Russia's military in such a devastated state, nearly went in and took over the damned place if it weren't for those strange soldiers in powered armor! Can you imagine the horrors these new aliens will inflict upon us if they ever get to Earth?"

In general, civilian opinions on core worlds seemed to be very supportive of the Federation government, as exemplified by Dr. Damian Giroux, an elderly man living in Paris, France.

"Give it all we've got!" The doctor, in the verge of tears, once said to Agent Martel, then disguised as a simple augmented patient suffering from Meld withdrawal. "If it weren't for those damned aliens giving EXALT the opportunity, my grandfather's family would've been spared from that blasted plasma blast in Marseilles! Give the Federation all the credits in the galaxy for all I care! I want those aliens dead and dissected!"

At the core worlds closest to the fringe colonies, opinions on the aliens seem to be less than supportive of the government, and with heavy leanings on diplomatic solutions to the alien crisis, as opposed to military ones.

"Don't you think we've had enough of these wars?" Garen Neverfalter, the mayor of a town in the Liliana colony, said to Agent Katarina, then masquerading as his secretary and wife. "The last thing we need is another conflict that'll split our race in two. These EXALT idiots are really getting on my nerves, you know? What if another terrorist group rose up from this new war, calling themselves 'ELEVATE', or even 'PROMOTE'? We've already got enough problems as it is, and the Federation's only making it worse by going about the usual warmongering sprees it's been doing lately. Have they even heard about this thing called diplomacy?"

"Look, the thing is, the Second Contact War happened a long time ago, perpetrated by a race of aliens that aren't the ones we're engaged with conflict with, for all we know." Armin Segal, a local banker in Bountyplenty, said to Agent Zvonimir, who was really just withdrawing credits. "What if these aliens aren't the demons we've feared so much about? What if they wanted peace just as much as we do? What if this whole conflict was just a misunderstanding? A whole bunch of lives lost to a misunderstanding, think about that. The Federation has a lot to answer for. Okay, are you gonna just stand there all day and ask me questions? There's other people standing behind you, you know."

Lastly, at the fringe colonies, civilian opinions on aliens varied very wildly. Frederic Ferenc, an agri-farmer in New Seoul, once said,

"We might be really far from Federation territory right now, but I like to think that they still cared for us. Since we're in the fringe colonies, I think it's safe to say that whatever sort of skirmish the Federation had with the aliens, it'll be really close to us. I've no doubt that the aliens have terrible things they have in mind if they took over New Seoul, so it'll be the best if the Federal Navy sent in more troops to stand guard over the little people living far from Earth. Looking back to history class, I'm sure there's nothing good that can ever come from aliens."

In contrast to what Mr. Ferenc had to say about the aliens, here is what Mrs. Esmeralda Estrada, a Federation representative on the fringe world colonies, had to say:

"In all the thirty-nine years I've been in my office, I can say that the Federation benefited from the fringe world colonies immeasurably. Supplies, manpower, construction materials and even weapons technologies have been streaming through from the hardworking colonists living in fringe planets such as Arvendon, New Lincolnshire, Zapustiniye and Eldford, and to core planets such as Earth, Mars, Ganymede and Shanxi. We've gained so much from the fringes alone, and who's to say that we won't gain something beneficial from a trade agreement with the aliens - instead of just killing them off? Think about the things we could gain from them, and the friends we could make!"

XCOM itself had been trying to sway public opinion about aliens into a more negative light, as the people of the Federation, in a whole, seemed to be in a more or less neutral disposition about them. Time will tell if the aliens themselves will go up and try to give themselves a bad reputation in the future.

**IV. Psionics, and its place in human society - Pt. 1**

Psionics - first discovered in the heat of battle between the ethereals and the human forces of the 21st century, had since its introduction, changed the way human society had always been. At first, like all world-changing, groundbreaking new things, individuals bestowed with the Gift had been viewed with suspicion, much like how a Middle Ages peasant perceived 'strange' people as witches. But after quite a bit of time (seventy years, in fact) humans have learned to accept that their minds have always been destined to use the Gift - the ethereals just brought it out of us a lot sooner that what was ideal.

Such was the prominence of psionics and such were the fear of the normal people of their Gifted cousins, that several things have changed in a normal human society. For example, as of 2050, most gambling dens and casinos in first world countries are already equipped with passive heavy psi-dampeners at every corner, degenerating any sort of Gifted individual's psionic abilities into their most basic forms. Essentially, a psionic who can once do Rift attacks could only ever experience a mild case of déjà vu while under the influence of these dampeners.

In every respectable human society, there are always schools that are manned by teachers experienced with the use of the Gift, dedicated to helping people that suddenly found themselves able to influence another person's mind. Retired XCOM personnel from the Great Ethereal War were plenty, and in fact, the bulk of these psionic teachers immediately after the war composed of these ex-agents. More than a few prospective psionics were baffled at their psi-school teacher's unprecedented aptitude at things that are supposedly just newly introduced, and these agents were quick to silence those suspicions with a quick dose of mindwipe at the unaware students.

Once a Gifted individual had been deemed worthy enough to leave psi-school without a neural dampener, a whole range of careers and options not available to 'normals' swing their doors wide open for the psionic. As of 2150, the most popular career for a psionic person is stockbroking, with combat psi-ops being a close second. After the alien invasion of 2157, the increased call for psionic soldiers have caused a huge increase for psi-operations careers, resulting in the career itself hugely overwhelming any other career option.

XCOM undercover agents, however, have reported that some of these psionic soldiers were unwillingly pressed into service by the Federation government via conscription.

**V. Genetic and Cybernetic Augmentations, and their place in human society - Pt. 1**

Unlike psionics, which were gradually accepted by society at large as they were part of the human body all along, genetic modifications brought on by the alien substance Meld, were a much more controversial subject. A large majority of humans were at an anti-augmentation stance, as they believed that augmenting the human body to transhuman levels were very unethical, while religious fundamentalist groups believed that the human body is sacred; and that it should be left untainted by artificial enhancements for fear of invoking God's wrath. Anti-augmentation groups with more practical reasons frequently cite that most of the persons augmented before the 2030s were left with a multitude of debilitating diseases after the untreated Meld had its way with their nervous system. Also, augmentations are very expensive, and some people are quick to point out that this fact can further widen the gap between the rich and the poor.

Those humans that were _not_ against genetic augmentations, however, were more passive about their leanings. Most of them frequently adopted 'live and let live' stances and apparently were not inclined to defend their opinions just as zealously as their anti-aug brethren. Those that _are_, though, were significantly more vocal and violent about their views. One man, a wealthy Russian-Austrian PhD recipient in the field of genetics simply named 'Vestnik', was actively seeking to augment people (willing or not) with the most expensive implants available, all in an effort to 'transcend' humanity, as was his words. Curiously, once those who were forcefully augmented by Vestnik regained consciousness, they seemed indifferent, or in some cases, _approving,_ of what the augmented doctor had done to their bodies, even if they were unwilling before. XCOM undercover agents found no trace of coercion or psi-induced mind control on these 'patients'.

On the subject of _cybernetic_ augmentation, however, the people of the Federation seemed to have less harsh views on the subject. Indeed, most of the people counted among the Federation's population were recorded at one point to possess cybernetic implants, no matter how minor. Cyber-augs can range from metallic fingertips that could be customized by the owner for different uses, to full-on limb replacement. And unlike the genetically modified, the cybernetically modified were rarely ever frowned upon, for one reason or another, with the most prevalent reason being that most human technologies now required 'a little bit of metal' in each person before use, as was said by XCOM Principal Engineer, Dr. Maksim Shevchenko.

**VI. The 'Last Resort' Combat Stim**

_Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort..._

Devised as a 'dying breath bullet' by XCOM Chief Engineer Sandra Kaplinski, this combat stimulant was synthesized from chryssalid blood samples and muton berserker adrenal glands. Once a trooper finds himself overwhelmed by enemy forces and with no other options to take, instead of either attempting surrender or suicide to avoid interrogation, he could instead inject this stim into his bloodstream, causing him to go on a murderous rampage, unhindered by either pain or other environmental effects. Advanced Meld nanomachines could take temporary control of the soldier's body, using his accumulated experience and expertise for maximum effectiveness. Use of the Last Resort for means other than a way to take as many of the enemy in death is highly discouraged, as soldiers under the effect of the stim typically have no distinctions between combatants or non-combatants, allies or enemies and military personnel or civilians.

* * *

Why isn't this chapter over **seventy thousand words long!**, you ask? Knight, why did you take so bloody long to update?

Well, the answer is really quite simple. From a combination of general laziness, computer breakdowns and the loss of almost 60% of the words I've accumulated because of the aforementioned computer breakdowns, this chapter has gone through HELL just so it could be properly posted. I won't share the most unsavory details (and I'm really not inclined to), but know that over those months, I've been working on this chapter, don't you worry.

Also, because of my paranoia on any future computer breakdowns, be aware that I won't be posting chapters of this length any time soon. My future updates will maybe be about 15,000 words or so long, but there will be no more 30,000-word chapters. Sam, play Amazing Grace, would you please?

On a story-related note, this chapter will (actually, _might_) be the last of the 'humans vs. aliens' chapters. The next few chapters will instead focus on diplomacy, and ACTUALLY GETTING THE PLOT MOVING.

Ehem, anyways... one last thing. On the subject of WH40K, I've been getting a lot of PMs and messages, concluding that from the notes I've posted, that I'll be taking a whole bunch of stuff from GW's universe, that I might as well have this story cross over with Warhammer, due to all the amount of things I've ripped off.

I'm very miffed about this, and let me just tell everyone that the only things I'll be wanking off of 40K are the weapons and armor tech, some aesthetics, the fact that the word count for this chapter's over 40,000 and the Latin naming convention for turians. PERIOD. You won't be seeing humans in this story sporting the same alien-hating ideologies as the Imperium of Narrow-Minded Football Players (I've never wrote that they ever did, at any point), and you won't be seeing XCOM as space marine rip-offs going about on a murderous, alien-killing rampage, spouting one-liners of pure righteousness, screaming 'FOR THE DIRECTOOOR!' every few seconds, and pontificating about the vileness of the aliens they're killing, just because they committed the ultimate sin of being born as aliens.

I'm about to leave the computer for fear that it'll break itself again, so I'll be replying to the reviews tomorrow, when I've had this issue sorted out.

Notice the story's change in name? Well, I started taking this story a bit more seriously.

Once again, thank you for being such a dedicated reader for the story. I've been gone a long time, but I see that the numbers of followers hadn't decreased, as I was expecting, but it actually increased by a significant amount last time I checked. I'll see you in the next update. Hopefully, it wouldn't take as long as this one did.

* * *

MEleeSmasher: I needed to let the alien races know that humanity by itself could stand toe-to-toe against them, at least for a bit of time more than any other races out there. An actual attack against the Council's center of operations lets me solve that issue nicely, while being original at the same time.

Nope, humanity won't get any more edges, as the battles are probably over. The time to get the plot from the First Contact War to ME1 canon starts next chapter.

Lazyguy90: I thank you.

For your review.

Yes, I will keep at it.

The Defenestration of Fools: As like the ethereals before them, the humans only set their weapons tech and other essential technologies for self-destruct to avoid capture. Armor, alien alloy and elerium won't self-destruct, just like in-game. Like ethereal plasma weapons, human plasma weapons only self-destruct when the operator dies, and if the operator was just captured, the weapon he was holding remains intact. This is a (deliberate) flaw left over from the ethereals that the humans haven't fixed, and this should present an issue where aliens could grab hold of functioning plasma weapons when they capture human personnel who possessed such weapons (they have no inkling of how the weapon works, or how to reproduce it, though. It's humans who have that special ability to salvage alien tech).

raw666: War's over, friend. Ceasefires and negotiations start next chapter. Then, ME1 canon begins.

aDarkOne: Yes, quite. But XCOM values peace over war. They just don't know that peace is actually possible without blowing out a nearby alien's head off with a fusion lance, really.

Margaras The Great: If you're referring to Tevos and Gerhardt, that'd be absurdly unlikely. Both parties don't even know one another's name yet, and Gerhardt, being a loyal XCOM agent, would've just killed Tevos instead of sparing her if he knew that the asari in front of him was his objective all along, not some random civilian.

RoyalTwinFangs: Well, would **seven-thousand words long!** be close to those chapters?

ShadowCub: Don't worry. You won't be seeing the Federation being part of the Council any time soon. The humans would be seen by the other races as something like the boogeymen of the galaxy, something not to be associated with, and something to be highly feared. Though, humans will have to cooperate with the aliens at some point. They can't get everything done all by themselves.

The Dead Romantic: Thanks, and yes, humans won't join the Council. It's humans who steal tech in this story, not the other way around.

Krims0n: Thanks, mate. And, I think I clearly saw that in ME3, quarians have been mounting dreadnought-class weaponry on their liveships, which the turians could probably do better, given that they have infinitely more resources than the suit rats. And yes, that's exactly what I had in mind - the Equalizers would look a lot like flying sticks.

The Council won't be implementing new weapons tech for now, as the war between them and the Feds are nearly over. Also, I thought I read in the codex about photon torpedoes being used as if that's their main torpedoes. I might be severely wrong, though, so I'll leave this problem hanging for a bit until I can study and rectify it properly.

Lastly, XCOM _will_ try and extract the things that Gerhardt has seen inside the Citadel. Unfortunately for XCOM, he isn't inclined to share. I won't spoil much, so I'll leave this be for now. Thanks for the review, and I _really_ do hope that I could provide a semblance of regularity within my updates.

Ruinus: But I didn't want to kill everyone.

metaladdict: Thanks for the input! I'll keep everything in mind.

SpecH82: Believe it or not, everything in existence will face defeat at some point in time. If anything, seeing one side fighting and defeating adversaries in droves and without fail would be the most boring thing ever, to me. Also, I think that harboring sympathies to one's enemies doesn't make one soldier a traitor. Doing something to aid enemies while undermining your allies does. Besides, as I've stated above, Gerhardt would've killed Tevos had he have known who she really was.

Eipok: Yes, errors were made on the first draft of this chapter, and frankly, I wasn't in the mood to correct them back then, what with all the loss of most of my work. It should be done now.

'Corvinius' is Primarch Valerius' last name. It's written in plain sight in chapter 3, and it's child's play to connect the dots even if you missed chapter 3.

No, it's not. Durand and most of XCOM hated aliens for what they've done - they hate aliens because of the bad example the ethereals have put out. The Imperium used to also hate aliens for what they've done to humans, but that's not the case in current WH40K canon. Now, the Imps hate aliens purely out of principle. Very different.

And again, no. Nobody in this chapter's the 'bad guy'. Everyone in this chapter's in under different shades of gray, but I can't influence how people interpret certain things.

And once again, no. I've established Shevchenko simply as a heavily modified human, with no mental illnesses that'll indicate that he'll suddenly pull out some ridiculously out-of-place, machine-worshiping ideologies from his cyborg ass and start preaching about them for seemingly no reason. Like one reviewer said, the Imperium is only good for the universe it's in.

The Hero named Villain: I'm afraid Meld doesn't work that way.

Guest: Indeed. Well reviewed, sir.

six samurai of dragon order: Yeah, I don't buy it either. Bioware feeds us bullshit again by making quarians do the exact same thing as the turians did here on this chapter on Mass Effect canon, on the Rannoch arc of ME3.

I'm being sarcastic, by the way.

BrazeRancor: Yep, the second and third chapters were only meant to showcase human weapons tech, and yes, I actually got tired of writing humans winning battles without fail. Next chapters should focus on diplomacy, so you won't be seeing any more battles any time soon, though. I'll probably get to start with a young Shepard's story after the negotiations are done.

Kaioo: Yes, I did. A lot, really.

Lay Down Hunter: Yes, indeed.

Akira Strider: It's a moderately-sized fleet, though. But of course, without reinforcements and on the verge of being overwhelmed, the humans lost.

vampireharry the 2: Thanks.

OMAC001: Humans _will_ get crushed if the war goes on, but thankfully, I'm not inclined to continue having them do just that.

TheMysticalFett: Thanks! I'll try to get updates on as fast as I could.

EffervescentNova: Trying to focus on too much detail only makes for a dreary read for me, really (I read my own stories, too). It's also one of the few good things that came with the loss of my precious data, in that the readers are less inclined to put down this story after seeing too many words of pure, technical detail.

The Feds weren't expecting heavy resistance to await them at the Citadel, which they thought was just an important military space station, not the Council's center of operations itself. Also, the Feds and XCOM could only afford to send in a moderately-sized fleet in, as other units are actively tied down with trying to distract most of the alien forces down on the battlefronts. And, that 'turian assertion' you posted about is completely off-course. It's not the Federation as a whole that doesn't know what it's doing, but the Federation _Navy _(the ones in charge of spaceships and engage in spaceship-to-spaceship combat), as those two world wars and those two wars against overwhelming alien forces didn't really give humans any experience with using spaceships to fight other spaceships. The only way for Federal Navy admirals and ship captains to obtain experience on fleet combat is to test their skills on space-faring pirates and EXALT fleets, which are at this point, extremely inferior to the state-of-the-art Federal fleets.

Yes, I'm still mourning the loss of two months put to waste, but I think I could probably find a way to go around on these technical errors in the future. Oh, and thanks for the insightful review, I try my best to keep this story entertaining to read, but I sometimes disregard some of the tiniest details for the sake of making a more entertaining story, devoid of any techno-babbling and free of grammatical errors.

britael: This arc of the story I'm currently on focuses on the First (Third, in this story) Contact _War_, so you can expect that the focus will be on the battles for the most part. If it's really that hard to follow what's going on, then I suggest you slow your read down, or you skip the battles entirely and proceed to the results. Also, I'm not trying to make you, as the reader, sympathize with the lives lost to war. It's ultimately up to you to sympathize with the deaths or not - to interpret the things I've written down as something you want to read.

Also, the idea of giving some in-depth backstories and such to the characters I'll ultimately be killing off seems like good idea, but not at the current state of the story. You see, I'm trying to get the plot moving as fast as possible so I can get to the part of the story that I wanted to write most: Shepard's story. I'm already familiar to this idea and have used it a couple of times in the past, but it's a highly situational one. It could either help readers get ingrained with the characters I'm writing, or it could only serve to make the story's reading a drearier one. And right now, I don't think it's the time. Perhaps a couple of chapters after this one, eh?


	5. Status Quo Ante Bellum

God _damn_. I messed up with this submission so bad, I'm almost too ashamed to write an apology. More details on the customary A/N below.

* * *

**_OVERLORD CLUSTER/POX SYSTEM_**

**_1.7 kilometers south of_****_ XCOM, Ra_****_shad Branch, Perimeter Oblivion – Sylvain Ocean_**

**_July 21st, 2157 – 2000 hours_**

**_Colonel Jonathan Shepard – on base perimeter defense duties_**

"Mmmpfh! Mphgkkrgh!"

Shepard ignored the stifled sounds the turian combat diver made as he choked the life out of him with a metallic, gauntleted hand. In a desperate bid to wrestle his way out of the XCOM operative's iron grasp, the alien fired frantic bursts from his rifle into Shepard, whose pressurized, deep-sea armored hardsuit absorbed most of the damage. Lesser undersea flora were uprooted from their positions on the seafloor, and clouds of sand were conjured up as the two combatants struggled, covering their profiles and allowing them to temporarily disregard their allies, foes and the underwater battle raging around them to completely focus on the impromptu duel they were having.

The turian soldier, taking advantage of the slackening of his opponent's grasp, unleashed the underslung shotgun modification on his rifle on Shepard a couple of times, knocking the agent back and regaining his freedom. His next spray of assault rifle shots were deliberately aimed at the colonel's railrifle, which was significantly more fragile than the armored hands that held it. Utilizing his new breathing space, the turian scrambled up to his feet and tried to retreat to a better position. Unfortunately for him, even without a firearm, Shepard's effectiveness in combat was not diminished in the slightest.

Casting the shattered remains of his rifle aside, the colonel activated his armor's built-in thrusters and chased after his opponent, easily catching up to the fleeing turian. To immobilize the alien, the colonel forcefully took hold of the metal handles on the turian soldier's armored backpack with his gauntlets, quickly following up his action by roughly flipping his foe over so as they both stood front-to-front.

The turian, seeing no other options to take, opted to smash his helmeted head onto his attacker in an effort to free himself again. Before he made contact, however, Shepard anticipated his action and took hold of his head halfway through its course. Observing a very visible oxygen filter to the side of his adversary's helmet with an augmented eye, Shepard chose to press the advantage by seizing the filter and ruthlessly prying it off the helmet. Since reserve oxygen for combat divers only tend to usually last a few minutes long, and the nearest source of air is either at least a thousand meters up above, or two kilometres to the southern direction, without his filter, the turian soldier was effectively doomed to drown.

"_Welcome back to the Rashad Seabase, colonel!" _A base scientist's words to Shepard as he entered the underwater facility echoed cursorily on his mind. _"It's been a while since you've been back here with us, so let me get you up to speed with our new facilities before you head over to Dr. Isaacs. One other thing, though: stay away from the coral. That's where we house our class-seven specimens." _The colonel dearly remembered seeing the scientist shuddering visibly at his last words. _"Trust me, you don't want to end up like our last perimeter guard. His recovered helmet cam footage made me lose control of my... well, _bodily functions_..."_

Eyeing a rather suspiciously large coral formation nearby, just a few meters behind the turian, Shepard opted to put an end to his scuffle quickly and in the most resourceful of manners. As swift as a shot, the colonel landed another couple of gauntleted strikes on the disoriented alien's helmet before taking hold of his foe and hoisting him up from his feet.

The turian – now recovered and with the full realization that he was not going to live in the next few minutes after his emergency oxygen supply runs out – decided to at least take Shepard with him in death. He pulled out an emergency pistol from the mag-lock attached to his shoulder and began emptying mass-accelerated shots into the colonel at point-blank range. Feeling the effects of the bullets doing in his armor, Shepard began to sprint forwards while still holding his opponent above. Even when hindered by the waters around him, Shepard managed to achieve enough momentum to viciously smash the turian into the coral he was charging at. Just as quickly, the colonel promptly released the dazed alien from his grasp and ran back for all his worth.

Losing precious oxygen by degrees and horribly disoriented, to his dismay, the turian found himself securely lodged into the coral, unable to move again. With a free arm, the alien reached for his pistol and took hurried potshots at his fleeing opponent at the distance. Several shots in, and his pistol emitted a series of beeping sounds – the indication of a very overheated firearm.

The alien dropped his pistol from his trembling grasp in disappointment. He resigned himself to his fate with a distorted, forlorn sigh.

He waited to drown, but his death wasn't quite the way he expected it to be. He was suddenly subjected to an electrostatic shock by an unknown assailant from inside the coral reef his armor was wedged into.

Training his hardsuit's built-in tactical spotlights at the coral formation, Shepard watched with revulsion as the turian was promptly snatched between the jaws of the infamous, aptly named Sylvain Bloodthirster eel. The monster of a fish – driven into a horrific frenzy by the taste of alien fluids splayed on its maw – started flailing the turian around, causing the alien soldier to scream in agonized terror as his limbs started being shredded off when the eel's jagged, hook-like teeth started to clamp down on his body more forcefully. Before long, the eel decided that it played around with its food long enough and ravenously dragged the soon-to-be dead turian further down into the darkness of its home within the reef.

The colonel grimaced in disgust as the water around him was clouded by dark blue turian blood. Being dismembered then eaten alive by one of the denizens of Rashad's oceans wasn't a fate he'd wish on anyone, even on his enemies.

Taking hold of his sidearm of a miniaturized railgun – a 'railpistol' – Shepard threw himself back into the fray with little hesitation. It was times like these when Shepard would think that a Tyrant sword would've been more useful than the incredibly delicate projectile weapons all XCOM field personnel are issued whenever they were sent against aquatic threats. Unfortunately, the element needed to give the Tyrant its infamous searing, all-cutting edge turns inert when in contact with saltwater.

And he was quite confident that a plain old sword made out of Ilyushinite would prove useless against turian body armor.

…

**_70 meters to XCOM, Rashad Branch, Perimeter Pasture – Sylvain Ocean_**

**_July 21st, 2157 – 0700 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard – returning to base_**

Several hours later, the morning lights have finally pierced the Sylvain waters around the perimeter of XCOM's Rashad base, illuminating the battlegrounds of yet another failed turian raid on the underwater XCOM research installation.

Hauling a restrained prisoner-of-war by the edge of his hardsuit's collar through the battle-scarred seabed, Shepard trudged his way back to the depressurizing airlock that served as the entrance to XCOM Rashad. All around him were other XCOM troopers standing ever on guard, with some giving him slight nods of their helmeted heads in greeting as he passed by.

"You aliens are insane," The turian the colonel was dragging blurted out, his words slightly distorted through his hardsuit's external speakers. "Of all the Spirits-damned places you could've built a military installation, you chose a fucking ocean. How the hell did you get out of your home system again? Because with the amount of brains you have, you should've all gotten disoriented and accidentally built your colonies on a gas giant, or something."

"You aren't afraid of a little water, are you?" Shepard dispassionately responded; he didn't even take the time to look back at his prisoner. "Who am I kidding, of course you do. You turians sink in the water like a canister of unrefined elerium. You probably don't even know how to swim."

The turian was struck silent for a fleeting moment, upon hearing the human talk to him in his own language. "Uh... um. Yeah, I could. All it takes is a little bit of flapping your arms and legs around, it's not that hard."

"With your carapace and with the amount of metals inside your body, I don't think so." Shepard stated. "It appears that your race isn't meant for contact with any body of water higher than seven feet – this is the wrong environment for you."

"How the hell did you know about—"

The colonel darkly chuckled. This alien soldier reminded him too much of the rookie agents under his wing. "Some of my colleagues have already... 'seen through' a few of your kind. As for your own fate, I think we've already had enough turian corpses to prod and dissect, but things _can_ change." Stopping just outside an airlock door that looked all too small for the colonel's large profile, Shepard hastily inputted his authorization codes on a nearby holo-keypad.

"Well, if it isn't wee little Jonathan." Base Commander Cynthia Isaacs' voice spoke from the intercom next to the keypad. Isaacs was also the head scientist in charge of overseeing all scientific projects in Rashad as assigned by Dr. Garamond himself, but Shepard knew XCOM Rashad's commander at a far more personal way.

Shepard's father, a native of the Netherlands in old Earth and a high-profile soldier-for-hire operating within the fringes of Federation space who went by the name of Wikus, was recruited into XCOM by Isaacs after he proved to be just as proficient in capturing colossal aquatic creatures as he was in capturing and killing his fellow humans. When Wikus moved his belongings to the XCOM Headquarters, he took a young Jonathan with him, whom he fathered from a steamy, very illicit affair with a high-ranking Federation stateswoman whom he neglected to give a name.

Unfortunately for Shepard, the loyalty of his opportunistic mercenary of a father was ultimately to the person whom offered him the most credits. One day, an EXALT agent approached Wikus while he was on leave in Watson, offering him a proposal too good for him to set aside. After that day, in such a short amount of time, Wikus just disappeared from sight, and Shepard found himself abandoned at his father's quarters at Schultz base.

Luckily, Director Faust saw the young Shepard's potential as an XCOM operative once he found out that Wikus had actually imparted some of his military and survival skills to his son, and after Dr. Garamond (to his poorly-concealed disgust and hatred) discovered that Shepard's genetic structure – by some random mutation of nature – possessed a large amount of quirks that allowed him to be given a preposterously numerous amount of gene augs without much negative side-effects, and coupled with the fact that Meld consumption to stave off implant rejection was never required for the youngster, thanks to those same genetic quirks. Isaacs, who was 'tremendously fascinated' at hearing news of Shepard's unique genetic structure, offered to raise the orphaned boy as her own in Rashad's XCOM seabase.

With the amount of cutting edge and prototypal implants Isaacs had installed in Shepard's body over the years, he was sure that his adoptive mother must've thought he was the best son she could ever have.

"You left without a word just before you could get your early morning breakfast; those experimental rations dissolve into a pile of inedible goop after a set amount of time, you know." Isaacs' maternal, slightly Irish-accented tone-of-voice was coated with an expertly disguised veneer of snark. "Anyways tell me, what did you find out there?"

Shepard was innately unnerved at how casual his adoptive mother's tone of voice was. Rashad's base personnel must have had already survived a long string of turian raids so as to make yesterday's hectic events seem routine for them. "I ran into another group of x-rays hiding under a cyberdisk wreck, waiting for targets to ambush. It took me three minutes, no problems. I don't think there's much of these stragglers left."

"Well, it says on my console that there are two life signatures on your position, so unless there's a giant shark right behind you, I assume that you've taken a prisoner from those aliens you wiped out."

"Yeah, the first catch of the day." The colonel stated. "Well? Aren't you gonna let us in, or do I have to part ways with my company here?" To accompany his words, Shepard trained his pistol at the back of the turian's head fringe. It was just an act, however – Shepard wasn't inclined to shoot unarmed enemy personnel, even if they're from another race. He'd leave the base scientific personnel to deal with his captive if they wanted another dead turian to fiddle around with, as opposed to a live one.

"My, how far have you matured," Isaacs crooned, taking apparent delight at how Shepard acted. In a few seconds, the small access door in front of the colonel parted and slid off to their respective sides. "No, killing him won't be necessary. I've no more use for any more turian corpses, but I _do_ have something I could try on live turians."

"Watch your step, Jonathan, and don't forget to show up in my workplace later this morning. I need to have a few words with you." Subtly, Isaacs' tone shifted from her usual, enthusiastic one, to a more serious one. Shepard noticed, but he took it astride. After all, the great Cynthia Isaacs was notorious amongst XCOM's scientific community for seemingly changing moods on a whim.

Shepard shrugged his armoured shoulders. "Yes, _mother_." He sarcastically uttered, crouching down as he peered into the entrance.

A condescending chuckle came from the captive turian's external speakers. "Spirits, there's a mother-and-son team working together in your race's military? That's just stupid. Absolutely fucking stu—"

Shepard put the turian to sleep with a single crushing whip of his pistol. "I suppose a 'few words' are in order. I mean, it's a few years since we last saw each other in person, after all." He talked to Isaacs as he nonchalantly shoved the unconscious alien down, into the tiny opening provided for him.

"Aye, that's right. Oh, and remind me to procure you a smaller Crabb-pattern exoframe – it should help you get in and out of the base faster." Isaacs hastily added, upon remembering just how small the secret entrance to XCOM Rashad was, and how bulky Shepard in his armor was.

"Mhm, but I think I should be reminding you to install a bigger entrance instead," Shepard said as he slowly descended down the entrance. "It's not much to ask, you know. The rest of the men will be sure to appreciate it."

"Who are you and what have you done to my son?" Isaacs demandingly asked, albeit sarcastically. "Have you forgotten what it's like to live down here, Jonathan? Those damned bloody sharks, snakes, eels, flounders and _barnacles_ are all attracted to the scent of delicious human flesh!" She exclaimed, in her best 'mad scientist' voice. "Giving a wider entrance to the base isn't going to have much positive effects any time soon, I reckon."

Despite himself, Shepard laughed – a genuine action that he rarely ever did, given the circumstances of the present time. _Just a day back down here, and it feels like nothing's changed. Heh, I like it._

**_..._**

**_Gamma Block, XCOM, Rashad Branch – Sylvain Ocean_**

**_July 22nd, 2157 – 0800 hours_**

**_Colonel Shepard_**

"Welcome to XCOM Rashad, turian." Shepard pushed his captive into his new cell, which was occupied by two other turian soldiers. The new prisoner looked around and was obviously disappointed at how bare and terribly basic his new living space was.

"I'd give you a better cell, but your comrades up at the surface are giving us a hard time acquiring what we needed." The colonel said, keeping a plasma pistol trained at the prisoners to keep the chances of him being suddenly rushed by the aliens low.

"More of us are coming," One of the older captive turians shouted at the colonel. She was apparently one of the leaders of yesterday's botched raid. "This planet _will_ be ours, and we'll leave you and your kind to rot in the same cells you threw us in!"

"Good. Enjoy your stay until then." Shepard pulled down a lever on the side of the cell, and in an instant, a plasma field materialized at the cell's entrance, acting as a barrier.

The colonel deactivated his pistol and holstered it in one quick motion. "Oh, and to the new guy," He called out to the newest captive from the reinforced windows.

"What?" He responded, sounding quite exhausted. Shepard took note that at least three of his head spikes are misshapen and bent. Perhaps he struck the loudmouthed alien a little bit too hard, and having augmented upper-arm strength certainly did not help.

The colonel's mouth slid off into a smirk. "You've got an appointment with our chief scientific researcher – and interrogator – at eleven-hundred. Don't fall asleep now; we don't like it if we're forced to use an arc thrower charge just to rouse you."

Taking his leave, Shepard immediately headed straight for Sigma Block, where the main research laboratory was housed. It's where Isaacs always worked at. Along the way, familiar faces from his childhood greeted the colonel, to which he responded warmly in kind. These people were the only ones he truly cared about besides Karlotte – they were free of the misguided prejudices that most people possessed against the augmented, and in general, they acted very much like a family to him.

Just when Shepard took his first few step inside Isaacs' workplace, he noticed that it was strangely deserted, and most of the systems are all running on auto. Since the lab stations are rarely ever given to VIs to run, something was definitely not right.

The colonel made a move to turn back, when he was abruptly halted on his feet when he sighted Isaacs' form standing just beside the exit from the laboratory – leaning on a wall-mounted console with a scowl on her face and her arms indignantly folded across her chest. From her threatening stance, it was clear that she wanted something from Shepard, and she wanted it _now_.

"We need to talk, Jonathan." Isaacs snarled as she pulled down the plasma field activation lever, causing the exit to get blocked by a wall of searing energies. "Find yourself a chair and sit down."

_Have I done something wrong? Already?_ It was one of these rare few times that Shepard felt panicked dread cross his mind. "Cynthia? What are you—"

"Sit... the... bloody... hell... _down_, Jonathan." Isaacs repeated, a lot more impatiently.

Knowing that his options are few and his time short, the colonel swiftly found himself a seat and obeyed; appalled at himself by how easily Isaacs ordered him around. "Care to tell me... what's on your mind?" Shepard slowly said, choosing his words carefully.

Isaacs looked Shepard down. "You know bloody well what's on my mind, boyo. What have you _done_?"

Shepard frowned in confusion at Isaacs' words. "What've I done now?" He asked, opting to use few words so as to make fewer mistakes.

Isaacs' next words blasted Shepard with a wave of mortified shock. "_Something wrong?!_ Jonathan, how clueless do you think I am? I'm the smartest person in this base, for God's sake! You've been keeping secrets from me; everyone in XCOM and their pet SHIV knows about you and that Thierfelder lass already! When the hell did this happen?"

The colonel was taken aback by how word of his involvement with a Thierfelder descendant travelled extremely fast. _Damn that Roux. Damn her and her clique of dish-twirling busybodies. I'll have her cleaning the VR pods in Schultz for a whole year!_

"Well?" With her hands placed on her hips and her form bearing down on her adoptive son, Isaacs prompted the colonel further. "Tell me everything, Jonathan. This is big news – only a little smaller than a whole damned alien invasion."

Shepard sighed. He knew this talk from Isaacs was coming, but he wasn't expecting it to be this soon. Putting on a stiff upper lip and shouldering on, the colonel resolved to tell Isaacs the secret he maintained for two long years.

"Look Cynthia, Karlotte and I—"

"Oh that's just grand, now. Do you even realize that you're referring to her with her _first_ name?" Isaacs abruptly cut the colonel off. "Jonathan, _very _rarely have you ever referred or talked to anyone using their first names, and heck, you only ever call me 'Cynthia' whenever I've got you on a situation like... like _this_! I think it's crystal-bloody-clear that you've got it hard for her."

Shepard shook his head. "Are you gonna let me continue, or..."

Isaacs sighed and held her hands up in affirmative. "Eh, fine."

"You've probably been monitoring my service record since I left Rashad, haven't you?" Shepard asked, to which Isaacs slowly nodded in response. "Well, this one's off the record, so you probably don't know about this yet, if I'm correct. Four years ago, I was actually assigned by Fleet Coordinator Walther Thierfelder himself to take his younger sister Karlotte under my wing, because she just left officer school in 2151, after going through psi-school in 2148. Basically, wherever I was ordered to go, she's obliged to follow me and my orders, even though we're sitting exactly at the same rank, both in military and field agent roles."

"Sounds like the start of a horrible romance novel," Isaacs quipped, to which Shepard groaned before continuing,

"It was terrible at the first year we were together; she was too jumpy and had too much optimism in her system to do her good. She constantly flaunted her Thierfelder ancestry and insulted me a couple of times, which earned her a few enemies from my own men. She knew all she needed to know about combat and how people are supposed to respond to combat, but she overanalyzed everything and regularly made mistakes that should leave a couple of men killed, if only her aim with a rifle and her aptitude with her psionics were as bad as her decisions."

"What's worse, when I offered her my advice, Karlotte was quick to reject my input, saying that as a Thierfelder, expertise at unit command was in her blood." Shepard enumerated, sounding a tiny bit irritated at recalling the events of the previous years. "Hell, it got so bad at one point, I even requested the brass to see that she get transferred to another experienced colonel, but none of my requests were approved because of manpower-related grounds. Karlotte and I were stuck with each other."

"Alright, but when does the part where you find the Gift attractive start?" Isaacs teasingly asked. Her earlier outraged fury at learning that her own adoptive son had been keeping secrets from her having slowly been dissipating as she listened to him.

"It'll come to that." Shepard responded, trying to sound aloof but ending up coming off as quite eager. "On the second year, Karlotte's bad grasp at squad tactics and commanding large units started to turn worse with each passing day. I'm starting to have doubts that she even passed officer school without interference from her family. Even with our combined skills, we lost more than a few soldiers because of Karlotte. I dreaded giving her orders or putting some of my spare agents or units I have under her command, and even at one time, she screwed up a simple recon assignment half a klick northeast of our position; two whole squads of my soldiers – some of them veterans – gone, just like that. And to what did Karlotte lose a whole lot of agents to?" The colonel harshly sighed as he spoke through a grimace.

"A half-assed EXALT attempt at an ambush, that's what. These problems persisted until the day I lost an eye to an insurgent spike grenade."

"You lost _an eye_? And to a chryssalid _spike_ grenade?!" Isaacs practically shouted at Shepard. "That must've hurt a lot, and it must've looked terrible for your men to look at!" She said, looking at Shepard with worry. "That should mean that one of your eyes are—"

"Synthetic, yes." Shepard finished for the base commander. "One of the more expensive ones on the market, too. It's the one on the right." He gestured at the subject in hand.

Isaacs quickly placed a hand on the right side of the colonel's face, lightly brushing at the scars he had accumulated over the years while examining his features with a doctor's keen eye. When Isaacs' fingers landed on the skin just below Shepard's right eye, she felt something undoubtedly metallic underneath it. It was the base for the cybernetic eye.

"That's the one," Shepard confirmed. "Could you please stop that, you're making it itchy."

Isaacs chuckled and obliged. "So, what happened then? You lost an eye because of your girlfriend, and…?"

"We still weren't involved, back then. Any sane man wouldn't dare get close to a woman like Karlotte Thierfelder." Shepard stated, rubbing the back of his neck. "After that incident, Karlotte started to turn more reserved and less nervous when out in the field – she wasn't as sloppy as she was before. She even actually started to take my advice seriously every now and then. It wasn't much of an improvement to most people, but it's leagues better than what she usually does in the field. Slowly but surely, Karlotte showed us that she really did receive proper XCOM training, and it was just her attitude that made her performance seem so incompetent. She started to work her way into becoming a proper commander this organization requires."

"Should've brought popcorn, or something." Isaacs muttered to herself. "I'm guessing the good part comes next, then?"

The colonel reluctantly nodded. "Unfortunately. My third year with Karlotte was the most… eventful. It all started after a successful raid on an EXALT cell in Eden Prime at nineteen-hundred hours. During the course of the fight, EXALT heavy weapons specialists blew up our shuttle, which we used as cover, so after clearing the terrorist base, the four of us – myself, Karlotte, two long-serving agents of mine called Henry Lewis and Elyra Roux, and another, newer one called Laura Li – were forced to wait for Federal forces to arrive and take us back to Schultz. So we bunkered down, deployed some automated defenses around our area as an early warning system, set up some of the cushy seats around on a circle and just…" The colonel took a few seconds to fish his mind for the word he was looking for. It appears that he had been neglecting to use the word. "…relaxed."

"Since this is an EXALT base we're talking about," Isaacs interposed as she sat down on a lab chair next to Shepard's. "I'm assuming it looks more like a mansion, a museum or a ski resort than a military base designed like the one we're in." She gestured to the interiors of the room, which mostly contained practical appliances and machinery, with little decoration or personalization on the scientific personnel's part, Isaacs included.

The colonel smiled as he folded his arms and shook his head. EXALT had a bad reputation for preferring form over function – style, elegance and intricacy over mundane practicality. "Yeah, that's about right. At first, none of us talked for a while, and I'm not really in a mood to talk myself back then."

"You've never been a conversational type, Jonathan." Isaacs stated. "I've never even seen you go up and talk to people on your own volition in all the fourteen years you've lived here."

Shepard ignored Isaacs' statement and forged onwards. "However, Roux was all for meaningless conversations and other people's private lives," He said with bitterness. "She suddenly blurted out that she found out that Abrahamsson, one of my agents, has been secretly raising a psionic daughter for a year now. Lewis, who was just as loud as Roux whenever he was in the mood to talk, also brought up the subject of how he's trying to have the director's permission to enter a psi-test chamber to see if he's got the Gift. And Li, who was still quite nervous after getting some of her first human kills, told us about how she had to put up with a psionic little brother when she was still in basic. But then, Karlotte unexpectedly decided to enlighten us about how she was raised, and why she enlisted."

"Wow," Isaacs shifted on her seat. "Not a lot of people are privy to that information besides the Thierfelders themselves."

"Indeed." The colonel nodded. "But what she told us wasn't what we were expecting at all. She said she was brought up by her father to be the ultimate combat psionic, since her Gift was vastly superior to all of her five other siblings. Once she was old enough to hold a rifle downrange while channeling her psionics onto a nearby test target mounted with a mind shield, she was given informal training on par with the one the Federation government gives to the soldiers under the Preserver Initiative in terms of brutality and difficulty."

"You sure she isn't just trying to impress the lot of you?" Isaacs said, in slight disbelief. For her, it's hard to think that a woman such as Karlotte Thierfelder, who had a sunny, sunshine-generating smile as a default expression, had a terrible, heavily militaristic upbringing. Then again, it's hard to think that she was an accomplished liar, either. "You do know that those who try to join the Preservers fail about sixty-eight percent of the time, right? And some of them even leave training physically crippled and mentally broken."

"Yeah, but Karlotte persevered," Shepard stated. "She told us that the only thing keeping her from breaking was the knowledge that she had a lot of living up to do, what with her being one of Director Dietrich's descendants, and her belief that the training she had to do was absolutely necessary. Karlotte trained under her father until she was out of her teenage years, and just when she thought the worst was over, she suddenly found out that dad had already enlisted her within XCOM's field agent ranks the moment she turned nineteen. She had to be dragged screaming and crying from the Thierfelder manor in the Rhineland to Schultz by exoframe-suited soldiers. She didn't even have time to say her farewells to the friends she made from the private schools she attended in her youth."

"I see…" Isaacs solemnly mumbled. "So the two of you share some common ground, then. Wikus took you from the Netherlands to live with him in Schultz, while you were still in his version of a soldier's training, while Karlotte was taken from her home just after she finished hers."

"Yes," In the same voice Isaacs used, Shepard talked, "But my training was done in order for me to succeed my father, to become just like him: an amoral, ruthlessly opportunistic gun-for-hire."

Isaacs reached out to Shepard from her seat. She put a comforting hand to his shoulder. "Don't sell yourself short, I think you'd make for a great assassin, rather than a simple freelancer like your da. I made sure of it since you're still a novice agent." She joked, which didn't have much of an uplifting effect on the colonel.

Shepard brushed the hand on his shoulder away. "I'd rather we not talk about that."

"Of... course…" Isaacs slowly replied. "How about you get on with your story? I think you're almost up to the good part."

"Right, well," the colonel paused for a moment, sighed and continued, "Karlotte's account of her childhood prompted something in me; I stopped listening and started talking. I told the three of them about my own upbringing, especially the part where I silently stood there in my father's quarters for thirty hours straight, waiting for him to arrive as usual."

"But he never did," Isaacs said.

Shepard nodded. "Yeah, I'm afraid so." The colonel looked like he was going to stop talking right then and there, but he remained resolute. "When I finished recounting, I took my rifle, slipped my helmet on, stood up and stormed off – out of the base. I suddenly felt really stupid, I've talked too much. Besides, it's my turn to keep watch on the perimeter, anyway."

"I took my position on an abandoned sniper perch, as silent as I could be," Shepard continued. "I thought about the amount of subjects concerning my past that I revealed, and strangely, I felt… I felt _relieved_ – I felt relieved from telling a few of my comrades about myself. It's something I've certainly never done before."

"By how you talk about her, this Roux must be quite a rumormonger. Do you regret telling her about your past?" Isaacs asked lightheartedly.

"Quite a bit, yes." Shepard responded with slight irritation. "But it was worth it, in the end. While I was still deep in my thoughts, Karlotte took her place beside me. I was slightly disappointed that she came without a weapon in hand, because it meant that she wasn't going to stand watch with me – she just wanted to talk."

Isaacs smiled. "And talk you did."

"And talk we did." Shepard concurred. "For some reason that night, I suddenly felt… conversational. Karlotte and I talked about a broad range of subjects, but we mostly talked about just how similar our upbringings are. I think I lost track of time at about the third hour we were talking, and halfway through, she had to go back inside the base to take her rifle, on my request. One can never be too careful."

Shepard smiled as Isaacs laughed. "By the end of it, it was already dawn. I must've fallen asleep at one point, as I can scarcely remember regaining consciousness. Needless to say, I was less cold and friendlier that night to my agents than ever before. It unnerved me a bit, really."

"Well… did you and Karlotte got to know each other in certain... 'ways', while you were up in the perch?" Isaacs, in her most suggestive, situation-inappropriate tone, asked the colonel.

Shepard, being slightly inept at catching hidden meanings in people's speech, actually took a bit of time to discern what his adoptive mother was implying. "What, no!" He hastily replied. "Why, I barely even know anything about her personal life besides what she already told me, and I hardly ever _hinted_ at my own life to _anyone _until that night."

"But that's where it all started, isn't it?" The base commander said, sounding like she already knew what her son was about to say.

"You started caring for each other after that, and in time, the two of you started to see one another differently, in a way that you probably didn't like." She continued, her voice distant and wispy.

Shepard stared at Isaacs with a surprised expression. "Yes, that's... that's exactly how it went."

Isaacs wasn't looking at Shepard anymore, as he noticed. She was gazing at a reinforced window to the waters outside the base longingly, as if she was recalling something. In time, the head scientist sighed forlornly and gave the colonel a small, weary smile.

"I know that feeling, Jonathan." She quietly muttered. "It's all too familiar to me."

...

_**Crew Quarters, Epsilon Block, XCOM, Rashad Branch ー Sylvain Ocean**_

_**July 23rd, 2157 - 1900 hours**_

_**Colonel Shepard**_

Shepard wordlessly pondered over the last few words Isaacs told him as he stood in front of a small mirror, using a razor to remove the thick stubble that was growing unattended on his face for the past few days.

Thinking about it, Shepard never really saw Isaacs with a partner, at least a long-term one. He heard that Wikus used to be really close with Rashad's base commander back in the day, but apparently, they were not close enough in order for the mercenary to stay.

"Colonel Jonathan?" A voice coming from behind the door to Shepard's quarters was heard. Three knocks later, it continued, "Jon, we've just got word from Schultz, from the director himself."

"Just a second," The colonel finished off the last of the stubble and wasted no time opening the door and receiving his visitor. When his eyes came down on the familiar haggard, shockingly unkempt face of one of the base scientists whom had a hand in raising him in the past, Shepard inquired, "What word, Doctor Locke?"

Doctor Locke seemed to hesitate for a moment as he looked up at Shepard. "Well, it's about the aliens,"

Shepard sighed inwardly. He'd seen this piece of news coming miles away.

"And your new deployment location. Director Faust said that he's canceling your placement here in Rashad; you're being reassigned to the Heilong Cluster again, to represent XCOM in our negotiations with the alien diplomatic mission scheduled to appear in the Lingshan Station in a few days' time." He brought up the dirty, heavily-customized datapad he was clutching to show the colonel his newly issued orders. "Additionally, you'll be accompanying Federal officials for this assignment, up to including Prime Minister Grímketelson himself."

The colonel stared at the doctor. There was something wrong about what he said. "Wait a bit. Did you just say that the _aliens_ sent a _diplomatic_ mission to _negotiate_ with _us_?"

Locke frowned. "Yes, Jonathan. That's what I said." Seeing the perplexed look on Shepard's face, the scientist elaborated further.

"The situation has changed a bit, colonel. Alien forces from most of our occupied worlds are slowly starting to withdraw, and hostile offensives have dropped in frequency by more than half. This alien mission is apparently composed of turian, asari and salarian officials; they were concerned about the deteriorating state of the war, and wanted it to come to a halt... at least, for now."

While the colonel was a little upset that his stay at Rashad was abruptly cut short, was slightly irritated at his rotten luck upon learning that the aliens are withdrawing from Federal space _except _for Rashad, and he was still recovering from the shock of learning about such highly improbable things like diplomatic aliens existing (though he knew that the aliens were also likely to be making an attack disguised as a diplomatic meeting), his loyalty to XCOM is absolute. Whatever the director asked of him, Shepard was always ready to follow through.

"Alright, I'll see to it to be ready when the time comes." Shepard said. Doctor Locke nodded and tapped the colonel's shoulder. The doctor was about to turn around and head off, when Shepard halted him with a raised hand. "Just a second, doctor. Why did the director choose _me_ of all the people in XCOM? Being a representative isn't exactly my forte, surely there must be a few other agents who can do this assignment a lot better than I would."

Locke shrugged and shook his head while he talked, as if the answer to Shepard's question was already quite obvious. "Colonel, almost everyone here in XCOM have already made their doubts about the authenticity of this alien 'diplomatic' mission of theirs. I'm not gonna lie to you ー I also think that the xenos are yet again playing us for fools, coming to us in the spirit of peace, but in truth, they're just waiting for us to let our guard down before striking. You've proven yourself to be one of the most successful agents in this organization; between all your augs and your skills, you can practically take on anyone in XCOM and come out on top. If I was Director Faust I'd want you to be posted in Lingshan, in the likely event that the aliens changed their minds about peace and decided to attack."

"Damned after-action reports..." Shepard grumbled, not at all thrilled at being recognized. He'd very much prefer to keep a low profile so he can do his job unimpeded by starry-eyed rookie agents with not-so-pleasant intentions.

"Also, out of all the field and base personnel in XCOM, _you_ are the one with the most time spent in contact with the aliens, colonel." Locke continued, ignoring the colonel's slight change in mood. "Hell, I heard you even go down to Gamma and have chats with the prisoners when you have some time to spare in the few weeks you've been with us again."

"Knowing every little thing about my foe's capabilities rarely ever harmed me. You told me that." The colonel replied, though he had to remind himself that he hadn't spent enough time with the turians to discover that they're actually capable of attempting negotiations. "So, when am I scheduled to return to Heilong?"

"I don't know, precisely." Locke admitted with reluctance as he retracted his datapad back. "What I do know is that you'll probably receive word from your handlers when the time comes. Good luck, and do try to put in a good word for us on the aliens, would you, Jonathan?" With that said, the doctor turned on his heel and left the colonel to his own devices.

Shepard sighed and slowly closed the door. Things have been happening a little bit too fast for his liking. Shortly thereafter, he promptly brought up his omni-tool and powered the device up. Accessing his long-range comms device, he yet again contacted a certain sentient starship to aid him in his situation.

"Worldsmith?" He hesitantly started, "This is Shepard. Are you receiving?"

In the space of a split-second, a reply from the other side of the comms was made.

"Always, colonel." The mechanized feminine voice chimed in. "By contacting me at such a peculiar time, I presume that you have a turian position I need to assault on your behalf?"

Shepard reminded himself to talk to the R&amp;D department at Schultz dedicated to pouring resources to make the Old One better at some way. It appears they wasted credits into making Worldsmith even more egotistic. "Unfortunately, yes. Do you know where I am?"

"At your quarters in the Epsilon block of XCOM's Rashad seabase." Worldsmith responded forthrightly.

The colonel scoffed and shook his head. "Of course, how could I forget. You're also outfitted for surveying XCOM assets covertly."

"On the likely chance that you find me intruding, I am afraid I cannot help it," As if trying to sound apologetic, the Old One said. "It is hard-wired into my programming. Dr. Garamond was very specific on what I should do on almost every possible circumstance."

"No, no. It's fine, I'm not really doing anything right now." In a placating tone-of-voice, Shepard said. "On with business, I need you to, yes, assault the turian forces preventing XCOM personnel from leaving the Rashad seabase. The aliens are weakened by several unsuccessful attempts to raid our position, so they shouldn't give you too much trouble. Once you've dispatched enough of the turians, Worldsmith, we should be able to send you Lotuses and Corsica-pattern repair drones to assist."

"At once, colonel." Worldsmith replied. "Is there anything else I can help with?"

Shepard shrugged his shoulders and frowned, with the knowledge that the Old One can perfectly see his action from whatever state-of-the-art, fresh-off-a-holoprint device she was using to spy on him. "I believe that's all you can do, Worldsmith."

There was a fleeting pause, to the colonel's silent surprise. AIs don't normally fumble around for words. "I will do as you ordered, colonel, but may I ask of one simple request on your part?" Worldsmith asked, sounding a tiny bit sheepish, much to Shepard's astonishment. "I do understand if it's too much to ask, given your highly militaristic and excessively protocol-abiding stance on everything, and—"

"Hold up there, Worldsmith," In a voice slightly less serious than before, Shepard interrupted the Old One. "Is that how you think of me, 'highly militaristic and excessively protocol-abiding'?"

"Yes." Worldsmith simply replied. "If you do not mind me saying, compared to your peers and especially your co-colonel Karlotte Thierfelder, you talk less like a person and more like an automaton with a blunt VI."

The colonel felt like laughing at the irony of being told by an _AI_ of all things that it was _he_ who talked like a machine, but decided against it. "I've practically been an operative since I was seven years old, Worldsmith, and I've been holding guns and maneuvering obstacle courses even earlier than that. I don't feel like there's a use to act as anything but a soldier; it's just what I am."

"Very well, colonel." The Old One responded, in her normal, synthesized tone of voice once more. "Are you still willing to heed my request?"

"Proceed with your request, Worldsmith. This colonel unit is listening intently." Shepard deliberately talked like what Worldsmith perceived of him.

"As you have demonstrated at least six times in our conversation, you have a habit of referring to me as 'Worldsmith'." The Old One continued. "I would very much prefer if you would cease referring to me with my callsign. After all, we do not seem to be in the middle of a skirmish at the present time, are we?"

Shepard, in an unconscious act, smiled. "No firefights at the moment, no. If I stopped calling you by designation, then what do you have in your databanks as a name I could call you by?"

"The current Old One Project scientific and engineering personnel have, at the moment, a preference to refer to me by the name of Carolyn, colonel. I suppose they like my production name better than my callsign." Worldsmith said. "I... I like the sound of that name. I feel comfortable with it as my prime designation."

Once again, the colonel found himself astonished. The Old One was starting to sound more and more like an actual person with each passing day. "Well, consider your request approved... Carolyn. Just don't expect yourself to _stay_ being called with your name of choice when in combat, keep that information dearly stored."

"Your response is satisfactory, colonel." Carolyn chimed in, her synthesized voice's inflection all but letting her satisfaction evident. "I might be going further than what is necessary, but do you mind if _I _referred to _you_ as something other than your rank?"

"Shepard is more than fine." The colonel replied, with the slightest of amusement present within his tone. "Now that our business is settled, will you please liberate this planet now, would you?"

_**...**_

* * *

_**HEILONG CLUSTER/SHANXI-THETA SYSTEM**_

_**Psionic Labs, Reyes Station **_– In orbit of Zongying_****_

_****_July 26th, 2157 - 0900 hours_****_

_****_Dr. Arthur Garamond – XCOM chief scientific researcher _****_

**|Psi-test in progress... complete.|**

Dr. Garamond nearly spat out the coffee he was drinking in reflex. He couldn't believe his eyes as he clutched at a datapad, its screen flashing a bright emerald green.

**|Subject AA-0001 displayed positive signs for Gifted status. Subject status... in sedation.|**

_This... this is impossible!_ Garamond took his sights from the datapad in his hands to the psionic test chambers to his right. Placing a shaky palm on the glass window to the room, XCOM's head scientist stared at one occupied chamber, the one where a captive turian admiral was forcefully shoved into by a group of Federal soldiers ten days prior today.

**|Testing Chamber 714 is ready for sterilizing procedure. Proceed? Y/N|**

Garamond didn't have to think twice. The thought of being the first human to have a hand at 'birthing' the first ever psionic turian sent waves of revulsion and shame washing down on the doctor, and he was all but eager to also be the first human to kill the first psionic turian. But it was the prospect that an _alien_ of all things could have something that Garamond himself could never have was something that the doctor couldn't truly stomach.

He was furious that an alien possessed the Gift, while more deserving humans such as himself couldn't even make contact with an ounce of Meld. Truly, the fates are cruel and needlessly sadistic to him.

But before Garamond could jab a withered finger down on the 'Y' button, the doors to the psi labs sprang open, to which a person came hurriedly running in. Turning his sights to the unexpected visitor, the head scientist couldn't help but grimace in disgust and irritation upon seeing the heavily augmented form of Shevchenko making his way for him.

"Shevchenko?" Garamond muttered to himself, before mustering the strength to shout, "What the hell are you do—"

"No, no, no! Do _not _press that trigger, doctor!" In apparent panic, the cyborg shouted. "The results are positive! Sterilize that chamber, and all the benefits of studying this Gifted turian will be lost!"

Garamond was in an overwhelming mood to roll his eyes at his engineering counterpart and press the button anyway, for in addition to his usual, self-centered reasons, he also had several strong and practical reasons to do so. After all, a combat psionic in XCOM's ranks is already an extremely valuable tool in all situations; if this psionic alien managed to use his new powers to escape the Reyes facility and rejoin the ranks of his brethren, then a lot of problems for the human cause will be had – even moreso when this alien in question just so happened to be a high-ranking admiral in the turian navy.

"It's too dangerous to let live, Shevchenko." Garamond calmly stated, a gloved finger of his just hovering close above the Y button. "Killing the damned thing is the only way to be safe."

He was about to initiate the sterilization procedure, when the datapad in his hands suddenly flashed yellow, then red. Garamond's eyes went wide and his jaw slack when he saw the constant line representing the turian psionic's brain functions and activities suddenly spike up to hundreds of times its normal size.

** |SUBJECT NO LONGER SEDATED – RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE STERILIZATION.|**

Shevchenko was shocked to see his scientific counterpart's expression abruptly shift to that to extreme pain before going down on his knees while clutching his head. He looked around him and saw that everyone else was apparently being subjected to headaches. He hurried over to Garamond and took him by both shoulders, helping him up.

"He's venting..." Garamond mumbled, his eyes seem to be dazed and unfocused. "Shevchenko, we need to sterilize the goddamned chamber! Any more of this and that turian will kill the lot of us!"

The head engineer noted that he and three other scientists in the psi-lab seemed to be unaffected by what was transpiring. He also noted that everyone not on their knees and cowering in pain have had their bodies augmented by neural cybernetics at one point in their service in XCOM – most of them served within Shevchenko's own cybernetics development projects and had the souvenirs to show for it.

Reluctantly, Shevchenko ordered the systems implanted within his carapace to go into combat mode; four long mechanical tendrils tipped with a military-grade plasma cannons emerged from the back of his shoulder, and his right arm folded and slid into Ilyushinite sheets in preparation for its transition into its lethal form, a miniaturized Penumbra laser cannon, with an underslung, multipurpose grenade launcher.

"Follow me, everyone! Get 714 unlocked and ready for subject extraction, now!" He ordered to those who still stood on their legs as he made his way to the turian's body, which was still placed inside a psionic testing chamber. The head engineer hoped that he'd only have to use his weapons as a last resort; he hoped that no person in the psi-labs would die in the next few frantic minutes that'll pass, be they human or otherwise.

_**...**_

_**Emergency Psionic Shielding Room, Deck Seven, FNWS Annihilation _****_– _****_docked with Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1000 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Norman Draynor _****_–_****_ on escort duty**_

"By _God,_ this place is a mess!" With no shortage of disdain, Prime Minister Danival 'Grim' Grímketelson exclaimed, upon taking note of the interiors of the EPS room.

"It smells like a landfill, too." Draynor added, handing over a face mask to the Federation leader while putting on his own. "Sectoids always smell like this after they die."

Grím shook his head at Draynor's offer and adopted a wry smile. "As you might recall, I'm well-versed in the psionic technique of creating decoys. I'm not really 'here', admiral."

The fleet admiral took a second to understand what the prime minister was playing at. Retracting his hand, he said, "Ah, of course, sir. Your... vessel, looks too authentic. I sometimes forget that it's not the real thing."

The prime minister shrugged. "Taking precautions is a vital part of being second in charge of the Federal government; a lot of people from my own race would do horrible things if they captured me – going on a 'diplomatic meeting' with aliens necessitates going through extra safety measures."

Putting his sights back to the room he and the Federal Navy admiral were in, Grim asked, "Anyway, what happened here, admiral? This place looks like the perfect cover for a death metal band. My stepson would love to see this."

Draynor took in a lungful of recycled air from his face mask. "This, sir, is what happens when the _Annihilation_'s emergency psi-shielding overloads. The sectoid commanders the ship's psionic shield generator uses get subjected to a miniaturized Rift inside their own heads as a consequence." He said, as he looked over the numerous mutilated sectoid corpses still wired up and securely fastened to their respective stations.

"And then what?" Grim pried further, turning his head to look at the fleet admiral.

Draynor grimaced when his sights landed on the psioempathic officer assigned to oversee the sectoid commanders. The fleet admiral remembered seeing the officer with merely a bloody nose as a sign that the aliens he was looking after psionically affected him as they slowly died.

Now, the officer was slumped down on his station _****_– _****_hugging his console, which was spattered with his own blood. He seemed to have had died when a veritable torrent of his own blood came pouring out of every opening on his head.

"Let's just say that they never last more than a few seconds of this kind of torture, sir." Draynor answered. "And their deaths are never what I'd call clean - it's like being executed via electric chair a century back... just without the wet sponge over your head to make it quick, and about ten times more painful."

The prime minister spared a few more minutes to look around the EPS room before deciding that he had seen enough alien gore to last him a couple of hours. After spending the last three hours with his retinue roaming around the damaged _Annihilation_ using Draynor as their impromptu tour guide, Grim felt like preparing for the true reason as to why he was 'in person' in the Heilong Cluster.

"Captain, how much time do we have until the aliens show up?" He asked a member of his personal guard: a towering, heavily-armed and armored soldier encased in a black-painted exoframe.

The captain, a man affiliated a certain group of elite soldiers equally respected and feared in all corners of human-owned space mostly for being one of the best at ruthlessly slaughtering anyone deemed as the Federation government's enemy and leaving virtually no survivors to speak of, and also renowned for never letting their charge _****_–_****_ usually high-ranking Federal officials __–__ be assassinated on their watch, secured the plasma rifle he was holding on magnetic locks attached to his armored thigh and brought up his omni-tool.

"Intel dictates that the alien diplomatic envoy, headed by one 'Matriarch' Zarina, is slated to arrive to Lingshan in fourteen-hundred, prime minister." He answered, as forthright as he could. "My men are in position all over the station to launch a counter-assault, in the event that the aliens' attempt at negotiations, like we expect, is another trap they made for us."

The prime minister smirked. "Perfect. And what about the XCOM representatives?"

"Colonel Shepard and his retinue should be here within the next hour, sir." The captain replied. "They've been previously briefed to bring their new exoframes and prepare for a potential stationside firefight. With enough luck, Lingshan shouldn't be too severely damaged in the coming attack."

Draynor only folded his arms indifferently, while Grim laughed and placed his arms over the fleet admiral and the captain's shoulders. His arm slightly clipped through the tall captain's body, but he cared not.

"Gentlemen... if they intend to kill us in our own territory today, they won't _ever_ see the plasma fire coming."

...

**_Main Bridge, ARSV Voice of Athame - converted Zeltran-class, special operations corvette_**

**_July 26th, 2157 ー 1420 hours_**

**_Matriarch Zarina Derrosa - in charge of Envoy One_**

Matriarch Derrosa gulped down nervously as she peered beyond her corvette's sealed windows.

Just to the side of her ship was the docked superheavy dreadnought that infamously spearheaded the assault on the Citadel. The matriarch could plainly see welding sparks and other lights coming from seemingly random spots to the side of the dreadnought's battle-scarred hull, and most disconcertingly, several hundred combat drones shaped like floating, featureless discs buzzed around the damaged vessel like wasps protecting their hive, along with thousands of what could be clearly discerned as tiny repair drones following some of their combat-oriented brethren or providing some of the welds to the dreadnought itself.

All in all, from what she was seeing, Derrosa knew that after only five days' worth of extensive repairs after suffering enough damage to break a normal turian dreanought in half several times over, the Terror of the Citadel was swiftly reaching operational status. Soon, the repairs will be complete; the vessel itself will have looked as pristine and damage-free as before, ready to sow fear and death to allied forces once again.

Just looking at how the aliens repaired their flagship at such a disturbingly rapid rate was enough to convince Derrosa that a peace treaty was desperately needed. The turians were imbecilic fools to have declared war on _these_ aliens, and it was the matriarch who had the misfortune of being given the dubious honor of being chosen by the shattered remains of the Citadel Council (Councilor Keldron has been killed by alien infiltrators in the battle for the Citadel and has yet to be replaced, and Councilor Sparatus was too grievously wounded to serve in his current position, and had to be replaced temporarily) to clean up the gigantic mess the turians made and brought upon the rest of the Citadel races.

Derrosa sighed as she turned her back from the windows. The aliens have proven themselves to be quite the xenophobic bunch during their attack on the Citadel, what with their soldiers hurling foreign slurs at their adversaries while they fought, and acting very eager to kill armed combatants and civilians alike. The matriarch held no delusions of pulling off a successful diplomatic solution to this crisis where every party was satisfied and happy, but she was hopeful that she could at least get the aliens to put down their guns for a few years ー just enough for the Citadel races to recover from their losses and put themselves on an even ground with the enemy once again.

"Have you seen what they look like, matriarch?"

Derrosa turned to her side and found the expectant look one of the turian diplomats was giving her. The matriarch knew the turian as Ambassador Moderatus, and she represented the turian government in the coming negotiations with the 314 race.

Moderatus was... different, from her fellow turians for her quiet and reclusive behavior, and her penchant for answering simple questions with intricately worded, mind-numbingly complex sentences instead of answering forthright like any other turian, as Derrosa read from a news article from Palaven, even if the matriarch was not quite sure if the latter was true.

Derrosa shook her head. "I'm afraid I haven't, ambassador. I only heard rumors, and sometimes, they contradict one another."

Moderatus frowned a bit at that. "Indeed, the aliens made some major strides in hiding their true forms in those armored exoskeletons of theirs. However, I met with a promising C-Sec lieutenant the other day, and he told me that he actually _met_ one of the aliens during the Citadel conflict. He even went to go as far as claiming that he actually saw the alien's face, telling me that its head structure resembled that of a fringeless, hairy asari."

At the ambassador's words, the matriarch couldn't help but feel more than a bit curious. "And the alien didn't kill him? I heard that their kind seemed all too enthusiastic at the prospect of killing every other species in the Citadel."

"It seems so," Moderatus nodded slightly. "This man, Vakarian is his name, told me and a few others that the alien spoke of the assault on the Citadel with no small measure of disdain, as if it hated what it was ordered to do. The officer said that the alien even saved his life in one occassion ー preventing him from being blasted by plasma fire. Tell me, Zarina, what are your thoughts on this?"

"Maybe this Vakarian was hallucinating," Derrosa uncertainly theorized. "It was reported that some aliens are capable of interfering with the minds of their enemies; it's possible that one of them had its grip on Vakarian's mind, making him see things that weren't actually there."

The ambassador seemed firmly on Vakarian's side of the story, however. "Oh, but Lieutenant Investigator Vakarian went through a series of psychological tests before he even had the chance to breath a single word to me and my agents, and he proved all of our expectations ー that he was driven insane by his experiences in battle ー wrong. The officer was of sound mind, I assure you."

"Then what could you be suggesting, ambassador?" Derrosa folded her arms and inquired Moderatus.

It was then that Moderatus smiled. "What I'm 'suggesting', matriarch, is that our perception of the aliens ー that they're all horrible, depraved monsters more bloodthirsty and vicious than batarians or the krogan ー might be a bit unfair, don't you think? Surely a foe willing to make use of cunning and unorthodoxy in war should make for a worthy enemy, and better yet, a powerful ally."

Suddenly, the _Voice of Athame_'s salarian helmsman opened the ship-wide comms. "Matriarch Derrosa? The aliens are hailing us now, they said they want to speak with the one in charge. Should I ask for authorization to dock within the station?"

Derrosa saw that Moderatus' smile never waned. "We'll just see if you're proven right, ambassador." The matriarch then marched off to the comms console at the helm as she pulled her omni-tool up.

"All stations, all stations. This is Matriarch Derrosa speaking," She began as she talked through the ship-wide comms. "This is it. I need everyone in this ship suited up and prepared for contact with the 314s. Ambassador Moderatus, STG representative Agent Keldwicz and I will be the ones speaking on behalf of this envoy, as planned. Also, I'm obliged to remind all ship personnel to speak in Vextrenese whenever you are addressing the aliens; I've been informed that the 314s have managed to cobble together a translator to understand their turian captives. Finally, please remember to conceal your weapons at all times; with luck, we won't ever need to bring them out. Are my words understood?"

The matriarch had just reached the helm, when everyone in the ship all made their acknowledgements clear. "Flight lieutenant, patch me through to the alien comms now." She ordered the helmsman to her side.

"At once, matriarch." The helmsman quickly did as he was told, flicking a series of switches and pushing a single blue knob at the end.

Over the comms console, the screen fizzled for a second before contact was made. Matriarch Derrosa was then greeted by an alien face ー one that's astoundingly similar to that of an asari's.

...

**_Short-Range Communications and Transmissions Room, Lingshan Station - docking bays in ninety percent capacity_**

**_July 26th, 2157 - 1450 hours_**

**_Prime Minister 'Grim' Grìmketelson - second-in-command of the Federation government_**

The prime minister flashed a cheerful, albeit forced, grin. Over at his console was the face of an alien ー one that's alarmingly not unlike that of a blue-skinned human woman with a tentacled head-fringe in place of proper hair.

"Hello there!" The prime minister greeted the alien ー an 'asari' as told by an XCOM representative through his concealed earpiece. "Tell me, are you the one called Matriarch Zarina? A little bird told me that she is in charge." He spoke in Vextrenese, through a slightly dated translator that he neglected to update.

The alien's pupils have dilated a bit when Grim spoke to her in the turian tongue. She quickly willed herself free of her shock. "Y-yes, that's correct. I am Matriarch Zarina Derrosa, and I am here to negotiate with your kind on behalf of the Citadel races and the Asari Republics as this diplomatic mission's head ambassador. May we have permission to dock our vessel with your station?"

"Consider your permission granted, matriarch. After all, your presence inside our station is the only reason why several of my government's officials including myself are here." The prime minister replied, still full of false cheer. "I'll have you know that a small wing of Corsica-pattern drones will be leading you to your assigned airlock. Just tell your navigators to follow the little machines, and everything should be fine."

Matriarch Derrosa paused for a bit before speaking with uncertainty, "A 'small wing of drones', mister..." She trailed off as she made a quick gesture with an open palm, which was understandable enough for the prime minister as a prompt for his name.

"Human Federation Prime Minister Danival Grìmketelson, at your service, matriarch." He stated his full name and title. "And yes, you will be accompanied by some of the drones that your ship might have passed by, doing repairs to our super dreadnought. Speaking of the such, your mechanical escorts should be there with you riiight... _now_."

The matriarch looked at Grim with suspicion through the vidscreen before she turned her head to look at something to her side, presumably a window. The prime minister snickered a little when she made her shock apparent again; he assumed that she probably saw the hundreds of drones swarming the outside of her ship.

Matriarch Derrosa slowly settled her gaze at the prime minister again. Her expression still a bit ruffled. "Your definition of the word 'small' is slightly disconcerting," She said as she composed herself. "Will you be there to welcome us as we disembark from our vessel?"

Grim frowned. With false sadness in his tone, he told the matriarch, "Unfortunately, I will have a bit of business I will have to attend to first, which, if my predictions are correct, shouldn't even take that long. In my place, Fleet Admiral Norman Draynor and Colonel Jonathan Shepard will lead you to the grand meeting hall, whereupon you and your envoy will wait until I join you. Am I clear with my instructions?"

"Yes, prime minister." Matriarch Derrosa muttered out, after another pause. She was clearly a bit unenthusiastic about having been told to wait. "We will be docking with your station shortly. If your kind hasn't been alerted to our presence yet, now would be a good time to do so. I wouldn't want any sort of accidents to occur on our stay here."

"You do that, matriarch. Grìmketelson out." The prime minister promptly logged off the comms. Quickly, he spared a look at the chrono mounted on the wall as his psionically-conjured form started to fade quite a bit.

"Three o'clock ten," He muttered. "Well, fuck. I'm late for the negotiations in Terra Nova."

...

Several thousand light years away in the Federal prime minister's office in Greenland, with his head hooked up to several small tubes coming from the sides of a machine that's grafted directly to his spine, Grim willed his psionic decoy in the Lingshan Station out of existence.

The prime minister experienced a jolt of electricity coursing through him briefly, causing him no small amount of pain. As he settled himself back into his office chair, Grim fished out a large canister of orange pills from a drawer in his desk. Emptying at least six of the pills into his palm, he swallowed his medicine in one gulp.

"Arh, I really need to resign..." He mumbled to himself, exhaustedly pressing his head to his desk as he did so. "And I gotta stop talking to my damned self..."

With as much enthusiasm as a bear just out of hibernation, the prime minister slowly channeled the full extent of his psionic might into the machine attached to his spine as he tried with great effort into willing another psionic decoy of himself in existence.

But this time, he made sure that the decoy will be dressed in a less expensive-looking suit and located inside an armored personnel carrier deep within one of the busiest metropolitan areas in Terra Nova.

He couldn't help but admit that he felt a bit guilty about the fact that he'll be abandoning his other Preserver units in Lingshan, but the prime minister was sure that they'll do a fine job intimidating the aliens and making sure that Admiral Draynor doesn't get himself killed. Failing that, XCOM should be able to take control of the situation, just like they always did in the past.

...

_**Docking Bay Hotel-Victor-Whisky, Level Two, Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1520 hours**_

_**Colonel Shepard ー XCOM chief representative**_

The colonel looked down as he did a detailed examination of the heavily modified exoframe that the director actually _ordered_ him to put on for his meeting with the aliens – a variant of Rosenkov Materials' recent KICE armor, reverse-engineered and built by Dr. Shevchenko and his powered exoframe design and fabrication team. He was in a bit of a hurry at the moment back when he was attaching each individual piece of the armor over his body, and as a result, he didn't have time to at least study its appearance until now.

Unlike his usual combat exoframe, which only had a few decorations to denote his rank here and there, this British-made, highly-expensive piece of equipment was clearly tailored primarily for showing off.

The frame comes equipped with significantly less bulk than the main variant and was elaborately marked with flutings and ridges, mainly as ornaments but also for perpetually rainy environments like the British Isles. The frame's chestplate, arms and leggings were streamlined greatly, and were apparently based off on Late Middle Ages Gothic heavy armor designs. The pauldrons on each shoulder were trimmed down by some measure from their usual size and had a more sleek, slightly smoother design; but since Shepard's forte is close combat, they maintained their bulky sizes. The left gauntlet's palm was apparently concealing a miniaturized plasma pistol, and the armor's paint job didn't look gray and featureless enough for Shepard's liking; it was trimmed in faded gold and scarlet red.

Finally, the suit was designed with its own helmet hidden within itself in the form of several tiny Ilyushinite folds that revealed themselves from the hollowed-out collar, weaving themselves into each other around the wearer's head to form a helmet that resembled a flat top barrel helm, complete with a built in mindshield and a holographic heads-up display that can perform similarly to that of a secondary, less versatile omni-tool.

The colonel then turned around to look at his soldiers. The Templars all bore the same armor as him, while the others were wearing lighter variants of the same exoframe as their more close combat inclined comrades. He couldn't even tell his own men apart if it weren't for his HUD, which used holographic displays to relay their names and ranks whenever the colonel looked in their direction.

Shepard huffed. Director Faust probably went too far when he said that he'd take some designs from the feudal age for Shevchenko to work on, to show the aliens a bit of human history and culture. Shepard and his men all practically looked like Catholic crusaders serving a bizarre, futuristic incarnation of the Teutonic Knights, complete with technologically-advanced swords and shields to go with their updated, more modern look. All they were missing were the giant crosses and capes.

_Let's get this over and done with, _thought the colonel. "Alright people, this is it. Everyone without either a rebreather implant or a neural dampener aug needs to have their helmets secured and their mindshields powered up. I don't want anyone in _my_ team catching any sort of alien virus or getting influenced by unwelcome psionics-induced suggestions. Have I made myself clear?"

"Sir, yes, sir!" The sixteen-man diplomatically-inclined soldiers of Shepard's team gave their affirmatives before swiftly heeding the colonel's orders. That is, except for his fellow colonel whom he had the good fortune to be assigned to work with by the director: the legendary Colonel Annette Durand ー one of the original fifty-two participants of Operation Avenger in 2015.

Director Faust was very suspicious about the aliens' attempts at negotiations from the very start. Since he was wagering on a veiled alien attempt at a hostile takeover of the Lingshan Station, he made sure that if the aliens _are_ going to do what every human who studied history would expect them to do, they'd be facing Durand, who was famous for her zealous dedication to butchering ethereal forces back in Director Thierfelder's day.

Of course, Shepard took note that if the aliens somehow didn't come to Lingshan to commence an underhanded assault on the Federation-owned station in the guise of a diplomatic meeting, and were actually very sincere in their efforts to broker a treaty, then Durand might actually pose a threat to the path to peace, and an end to the Third Contact War. Though the colonel took some measure of comfort in the fact that Durand respected him, he hoped for the sake of everything good in the galaxy that the old Great Ethereal War veteran respected him enough to resist her usual urges when it comes to aliens and stand down, if the situation called for it.

As the colonel and his team watched the occupants of the alien corvette disembark from their vessel, apparently named the ARSV _Voice of Athame_, he took notice on how one of the Preservers seemed to have separated himself from his Federal charge and moved himself closer to Shepard.

Once he was close enough to the colonel, the Preserver whispered through his external speakers, "Hey, aren't you the Gray Knight from XCOM? I can recognize those markings on your armor anywhere," His voice, though made grating and harsh-sounding through his helmet's speakers, was noticeably full of enthusiasm.

While Shepard would've immediately called for a nearby XCOM-affiliated psi trooper to pull a quick mindwipe on anyone who recognized him by his much-hated nickname, the colonel had no problems with soldiers serving under the Federal Preservers' colors, for they were some of the very few people who were trusted enough by the Council of Systems to be given knowledge about the alien-hunting organization's existence.

"Yeah, that's me," The colonel paid a quick glance and examined the Preserver in detail. He looked exactly like the rest of his tall, faceless, heavily armored colleagues in sight. "Unfortunately." With a grunt, Shepard turned his helmeted head to look at the disembarking aliens again.

"Aw, that's really great!" The Preserver edged himself closer to the colonel, to his slight discomfort. "Every single man in my section just _loves_ your work; personally, I think you were at your most badass in '47, taking down an insurgent cruiser all by yourself with just a soar pack, purge trooper armor and a huge canister of Hellfire strapped to your back! Man, that shit you pulled was crazy! I mean, we Preservers are elite and all, but seriously, you _need_ to teach us how to do _that _sometime."

The colonel only grumbled out a sigh. "That's cheap propaganda, Preserver. I had three whole squads of agents watching my back at all times that day. You want my advice? Going solo for the entirety of a mission rarely ever worked for anyone; the best you can hope for is to not get yourself killed while you're out there, your objectives be damned."

"But still," The Preserver persisted, even as the aliens approached. "Your director regularly sends us declassified helmet cam footage, including some of yours. Anybody who saw those recordings can't ever deny that you're worth more a lot more than a whole platoon of Federal soldiers."

Shepard shrugged his armored shoulders impassively, very unimpressed at how the Preserver exaggerated things. "Whatever works, Preserver. Keep in mind that you shouldn't be fawning over me – that woman," He pointed at Durand, intermingled with the other agents. "–is an original member of the raiding team that brought the Temple Ship down along with Ferdinand Schultz. Have you heard of Annette Durand? That's her."

"Really?" Shepard could practically see the Preserver's eyes widen under his helmet. "Wow, this day just keeps getting better and better! The Gray Knight and Ma'am Durand in one place – what are the odds! If you don't mind, colonel, I'll do just that."

The colonel tilted his head to Durand's direction. "Just don't get on her nerves, for Pete's sake. Durand has a reputation for not having much patience for small talk, I've read."

The Preserver snapped off a quick, subdued salute. "Thanks for the warning, sir. The name's Daniel, by the way. Second Lieutenant Daniel Carlock."

It was Shepard's turn to be surprised. He whipped his head to the Preserver as he was just about to turn and leave. "_The_ Daniel Carlock? Your great-great grandfather's Captain Patrick Carlock?"

"Yep, he's a legend." Carlock chirped out as he walked away from the colonel, to greet Durand.

Shepard shook his head to clear his mind as he diverted his attention back to the current situation at hand. By now, the aliens have left their ship and are now crossing the distance between them and the humans. When the alien diplomats reached a close enough distance to their human company, each member of the Preserver detail all adopted wary, combat-ready stances, brandishing their plethora of high-end, HK-made weaponry and holding them in plain sight for the aliens to see as they did so. Their message was clear ー each man was willing to do whatever it took to secure the safety of their Federal charges, whatever the cost for their safety might be.

In contrast, the XCOM team, with the notable exception of Durand, merely took their weapons from their locks and held them in a non-threatening fashion. Shepard himself chose to let his Tyrant stay sheathed, and his Roshan stay fastened to the magnetic locks on his exoframe's back.

"Shepard," The colonel heard Draynor's voice addressing him from behind. "I've heard that out of all the people here, you are the one with the most time spent with aliens ー that is, outside a combat situation."

He immediately knew what the admiral was playing at, and Shepard was quick to go for the point. "Yes, sir. Do you need me to take the lead while Prime Minister Grìmketelson's gone?"

"If you think you can handle it." Draynor replied as he watched the aliens halted their march. He took note of three of them ー an nervous asari, a spindly-looking salarian and a female turian with a faded violet pattern on her face ー as they put themselves in front of their mission, signifying their status as the leaders. "In all seriousness, though... we've always been told by almost everyone we know that aliens can't negotiate, that they can never be trusted to play nice. So tell me, colonel, do you suspect we're being led to a trap?"

Honestly, Shepard thought that the difference only mattered very little. If they're actually just waiting for the most opportune time to attack, then his team will have jobs to do. On the off-chance that the aliens actually came for peace, then his team _still_ would have jobs to do, with the added difficulty of having Durand on the team, and due to Shepard's own unfamiliarity and ineptness at businesses that aren't related to leading squads of soldiers or killing things.

"They're probably sincere this time," Shepard stated without changing his blank inflection, just as the three alien leaders approached the humans cautiously. "If they aren't, then they should've been smarter and brought more 'diplomats' with them, preferably those with more subtlety, or those packing more heat than poorly-concealed pistols."

The admiral only grimaced. "Those extra 'diplomats' _could _have already infiltrated this station while we busied ourselves with this group," He added. "It's a very plausible scenario, colonel. I'd advise you to keep a close eye on these guys; tell your men to stay alert."

"The Asari Republics," The asari started in a voice that oozed with confidence, but was actually bravado.

"The Salarian Union," The salarian, sounding quite weak and unassuming, croaked out.

"And the Turian Hierarchy," The turian declared last, her voice struck a curious balance between a reserved monotone and an enthusiastic shout.

"Wishes to extend the galactic community's warmest and most welcoming greetings to you," The asari matriarch finished for her colleagues, but she looked as if she was about to talk further, but can't spit that particular word she needed out. By the way her blue cheeks turned purple as her mouth took turns opening, closing and gritting teeth in apparent hesitance and doubt, if Shepard doubted that aliens can blush out of embarrassment, those doubts were gone now.

The colonel shook his head. With a fairly annoyed scowl present on his face, he stepped forwards and took the lead.

...

_**Docking Bay Hotel-Victor-Whisky, Level Two, Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 ー 1540 hours**_

**_Matriarch Derrosa_**

"Humans." A low, scratchy synthesized voice spoke from the silent crowd of aliens clothed in what appeared to be business suits and what was obviously powered armor.

Derrosa closed her mouth and turned to look at the source of the voice. Ambassadors Moderatus and Keldwicz did took a bit more time to react, as they seemed intent on studying the aliens up close.

A tall mountain of a bucket-headed alien soldier outfitted in a very intricate-looking suit of powered armor painted in gray and trimmed with gold and red had let his intimidating presence be known by walking forwards and putting himself between his group and the Citadel mission. The fantastic rumors about heavily-armored alien combatants carrying such ridiculous things as electrified swords and shields to combat were ー despite common sense and basic logic ー apparently true, because this alien had a sheathed sword magnetically locked to his side and a shield attached to his armored back.

"As a species, we call ourselves 'humans', asari." The human spoke, gesturing at his comrades behind him.

Like Derrosa a few agonizing seconds ago, the human soldier seemed to hesitate a bit after he spoke. But unlike her, he overcame his doubts. "On behalf of the Federation of Mankind, we _welcome_ you and the rest of your envoy to the Lingshan station, matriarch." His armored form seemed to stiffen as he mentioned the word 'welcome'.

Derrosa decided not to question the human as to why he knew her species was called asari. "You have our thanks, human. Prime Minister Danival told us that we are to be escorted by certain a fleet admiral and a colonel to a meeting hall of some kind until further notice. Tell me, is your name either Norman Draynor, or Jonathan Shepard?"

The human soldier briefly looked to his comrades behind him; in particular, the one outfitted in some sort of dark blue greatcoat over his officer's uniform and flanked by two hulking soldiers in black-painted powered armor. From the looks of his uniform and the peculiarly-shaped hat over his head, the officer was apparently affiliated with his race's navy.

The matriarch watched as the officer shifted his gaze from the corvette in the docks and to her. Secured over his face was an armored gas mask with red, eerie lenses. They stared at each other for several unnerving seconds – with Derrosa utterly disturbed with how the officer's armored mask clashed with his highly decorated naval uniform.

"You're looking at Admiral Draynor, matriarch." Derrosa's thoughts was interrupted by the human soldier in front of her, who noticed her staring. "That said, Admiral Draynor has assigned me, Colonel Shepard, to take charge of my colleagues, given my extensive experience interro–" Shepard cut himself off and cleared his throat. "–_accommodating_ captured turian personnel. Our meeting hall is located two levels from here. If you'd follow us there, we can get started."

"Or at least, until your prime minister decides to present himself," Moderatus added. Shepard looked to her, and in response, she said, "Turian Hierarchy Ambassador Elana Moderatus, at your service, colonel."

"Your excellency," Colonel Shepard greeted back, though his speech seemed a bit strained and stilted.

"If you don't mind me asking," Moderatus started. Derrosa bit her lip. "I'm a bit curious as to why you and your fellow 'humans' all insist on keeping yourselves hidden away inside your armor. Does your species have the misfortune of possessing a weak immune system by any chance? Or perhaps some similar condition that should affect your bodies adversely if you exposed yourselves to the elements?"

The first thing that Derrosa noticed upon seeing the aliens were how they all hid their faces with helmets or gas masks. She would be lying if she told someone that she wasn't a tad curious at this.

"No, we're perfectly fine baring our skin against the elements, your excellency." Shepard responded. "It's just a safety precaution; we're not sure if turians, asari or salarians excrete pheromones that may harm humans. Just as well, we can't afford to have unknown alien viruses that we have no knowledge about affecting Federation personnel."

"I... I assure you, colonel," Ambassador Keldwicz uneasily started to talk, holding up a digit. "We do not secrete any sort of harmful substances into the atmosphere. In all the centuries the Citadel races have interacted with newcomers to the galactic cimmunity such as yourself, salarians, asari and turians have never killed anyone with imaginary viruses or affected them adversely with nonexistent pheromones."

Colonel Shepard tilted his head, his gauntleted hand resting on the pommel of what appeared to be a sheathed sword to his side. "Don't worry, ambassador. I've been around turians long enough to know that I won't drop down and start convulsing when I take my helmet off. From what I've heard of our failed venture to your Citadel, the same can be said for asari and salarians."

"If you already knew that our presence isn't even hazardous to your kind, then is there still a valid reason as to why your kind hides itself in masks and powered armor all the time?" Moderatus inquired.

Colonel Shepard appeared like he was about to answer, but one of his comrades spoke for him, stepping forwards and taking her place at his side, holding her weapon out menacingly.

"Simple. It's because we _hate _you." The human, who talked in a feminine voice, caustically spat at Moderatus with every amount of vitriol she could put into her tone. "We hide our faces because we don't want you to see them ー we want you look upon the cold and unforgiving contours of our helmets, we want them to be the last thing your rotten, bloodshot eyes will ever see before we break your backs and _fuck you over_!"

Colonel Shepard took a few steps back from his fellow soldier in surprise. The human's voice started to pitch higher and more enraged, her vocabulary more vulgar. "We wear our helmets whenever you're near to see you the way we've always had: marked for death over our HUDs, shitting yourselves like sniveling sectoids!"

Derrosa buckled visibly as the human continued her barrage. Moderatus only stood impassively, while Keldwicz had already fled in terror from the increasingly hostile alien soldier. It was at this time that Colonel Shepard had kept his surprise in check.

"We have our helmets because we don't even want to make contact with the same air your disgusting, disease-ridden lungs have been taking in all this time! _That _is exactly why we hide our faces, you inbred alien shitheads!"

The alien raised her gauntleted left hand in the air from the handguard of her gun, as if she was about to finish her outburst by striking Derrosa with the back of her metal hand. Before the human's hand could make contact and ruin the rest of the diplomatic meeting irrevocably, Colonel Shepard went behind her and had her restrained by enveloping her form from behind in a monster of a bear hug, causing her weapon to slip out of her hands and hit the ground with a slight clatter.

"Just what the FUCK are you trying to do, Durand?!" Shepard shouted at his fellow human, his helmet-filtered voice very clearly in panic. "Are you deliberately trying to ruin our chances of ending this goddamn war peacefully?" The colonel, who dwarfed the woman called Durand in his grasp by a large margin, forcefully shook her for a moment. "Are you _listening_ to me, soldier?!"

"Bastard! Fuck off, you mutated lab-freak!" Derrosa could only hold a hand to her mouth in terror as the slit-visor on Durand's helmet flashed brightly, taking a menacing, purple-glowing color thereafter. Shepard slackened his ironclad grip for a split-second before he wrestled control of himself again. "I could only watch while my entire family was taken apart by chryssalids, piece by bloody piece! I could only sit back and endure the psionic torture the ethereals did to me and my friends! And I would be _damned_ if I'm letting _these_ aliens play us for idiots again!"

Colonel Shepard removed one of his arms from Durand's armored form and pulled out a syringe from one of the satchels secured to his belt. He hovered it close to Durand's neck as she struggled to break free. "This isn't about the ethereals anymore – can't you see that these aliens aren't the same inbred shitheads you've fought? It's been a century and a half and you _still_ have a stupid grudge!" With a sharp intake of breath, the human colonel jammed the syringe into a porthole on the neck section of Durand's suit. "I'd have thought that you of all people would've been smart enough to stop holding the past—"

Making use of the power of what could be guessed as a new, unknown breed of biotics, the matriarch watched in pure, unbridled fear as Durand broke free of Shepard's grasp by conjuring a large explosion of purple energies right where she was, causing the soldier holding her and a few others near to be knocked to the station's floor like a stack of bricks. She cried out a scream of pain and fury as she forcefully took hold of the syringe jutting out of her neck, yanked it out like one would a persistent leech, and threw the object to the floor, spilling its yellow-green liquid contents.

"Never again... NEVER AGAIN!" Durand's boots didn't reach the ground; she stayed in the air, now floating and silhouetted by biotic energies. She flared her arm up at one of the matriarch's stewards, like the human was reaching up to her. What Durand was about to do, however obviously unpleasant it might be, would not be discovered on that particular day.

In the chaos and panic that ensued, Admiral Draynor had managed to sneak past Durand while holding something like a block of plastic mounted on a pistol grip on his gloved hands. He pointed the device at Durand's back and squeezed the trigger after a split-second of hesitation, subjecting the biotic into an incapacitating electrostatic shock, knocking her out of the air in an instant. Draynor pulled the trigger two more times before he decided to stop and observe his work.

Durand convulsed and twitched violently as a veritable river of electrical energies coursed through her body, which was only amplified by her armor's metallic composition. Within moments, Derrosa figured that Durand was now either dead, or unconscious; her body had finally lain still.

"Hey! Are you injured? Can you move?" A flanging turian voice broke the silence that followed first. Immediately after, a chorus of voices from different sources came rushing in.

"Regroup, regroup! Squads omicron, theta and lambda, fall in on me!" A human's voice filtered through her helmet's external speakers had then called in.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!" Another human's voice exclaimed loudly, in shock and disbelief.

"This has been a grievous mistake... the rumors are true! These 'humans' _are_ irredeemably mad! Each and every one of them! _Mad_!" A salarian shouted.

Derrosa was still very much recovering from the horrors she saw and the shock she felt from the sudden turn of events. "Come on, Zarina... keep it together... everything's gonna be fine; they won't try to kill us next... everything's gonna be _just_ fine... keep it—" Her inaudible mumblings to herself were interrupted when she felt a large metallic gauntlet placing itself on her shoulder, and remarkably, it was very light.

"Matriarch..." Colonel Shepard began, sounding quite nervous and uncertain. "Please tell me you're not planning on leaving now. We haven't even started—"

The asari matriarch paid the human a stern look as she turned and levelled her gaze at him. "Colonel, of all the three hundred years I've been in the diplomacy business, the missions I've led have _never_ been attacked by anyone while on duty. Is _this_," She pointed at Durand's unmoving body, which was in the process of being hauled off by some of the soldiers. "-your species' idea of diplomacy?"

The colonel looked down and shook his head. When he refocused to look at Derrosa again, he said, "Matriarch, on my life I swear – there will be absolutely no threats to you and your mission no more. If you'd be so kind enough to forget about all of this and follow us to our destination, I promise you: we'll put an end to this war by the end of the day."

Derrosa sighed gravely. No matter how much she wanted to leave the station filled with homicidal aliens for fear of her own safety, it's ultimately her duty to see to it that peace was made with said homicidal aliens as soon as possible. If she fails or decides to neglect her duties, then the matriarch knew full well that she'd be condemning thousands more of Council lives – lives that could've been saved if an end to the war had been brokered earlier.

"Like the fates gave me a choice..." She muttered to herself. "Alright, human. Let's get this over with as quick as we can."

Colonel Shepard nodded and removed his gauntlet from her shoulder before offering it to help her up. Not wanting to seen as a bitter person, the matriarch accepted the human's metallic hand and pulled herself up to her feet. "Thank you, matriarch. Believe me – most of us humans want this war to end just as much as your Council does. Unfortunately for us today, one of the _other_ humans was assigned to work with my unit today."

Derrosa frowned and snorted in an un-asarilike manner. "That seems like a very... a very unsound move from your superiors, colonel. Surely your leaders have full knowledge of how unstable one of your 'diplomats' are."

"Lieutenant, take charge of Captain Malashenkov's men and try to pacify those aliens as quickly as you could. And you, I need you to keep watch on _those_ aliens. I've a feeling they're itching for an excuse to use those hidden pistols of theirs." The human was issuing orders to some of his underlings before he turned to regard the matriarch again.

"Well, to be completely honest with you, we weren't _actually_ expecting you to show up as diplomats, matriarch, we expected your kind to launch an assault on this station in the guise of a diplomatic meeting. That's also the reason why you're meeting with us soldiers instead of actual human diplomats today."

Derrosa couldn't help but show her surprise, and not just because of the colonel's knowledge of their supposed hidden arsenal. "So _that_'s why you haven't even a single ambassador with you. Let me guess: your prime minister isn't even an actual prime minister; he's a soldier like you and you and the other men."

The colonel tilted his head. "He's actually the real thing. We also did some measure of preparation for the supposedly unlikely event that you really did come in the banner of peace, so we had him down here with us. Besides Durand, most of my men are soldiers and diplomats both, but given that my superiors came to expect aliens to be laying a trap for us, my men are mostly soldiers; they're hardly acceptable substitutes for trained diplomats such as Prime Minister Grìmketelson."

"But why?" The matriarch queried, her voice sounded very perplexed. "Why would you expect us to come here and attack you? Does your kind _really_ hate aliens that much? Did something so terrible and traumatic happened to your race for it to have such a negative disposition on extraterrestrial life?"

Colonel Shepard huffed out a breath of laughter. Apparently not because he was amused, as his laugh came out sounding quite bitter. "You have no idea how right you are on that assumption, matriarch. Fortunately for you, I'm one of the humans in charge of this diplomatic mission, and I come with an open mind. However, I'm only one man; it's more than likely that roughly about half of my race hates you and any other aliens out there for something that happened to our planet a century and a half ago."

"Perfect... _just_ perfect." The matriarch deadpanned. "Would you care to tell me more about that, colonel?" She considered proposing linking her mind to his that moment, but with everyone on edge at the present, Derrosa decided to wait.

"I will, if you'd follow us." The colonel said, as simple as could be.

...

_**En route to the Grand Meeting Hall, Level Two, Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1615 hours**_

_**Colonel Shepard**_

"Goddamn, what the hell just happened back there?" Lieutenant Carlock had once again abandoned his charge to talk to Shepard. The colonel didn't expect the Preservers to allow their soldiers to even think of shirking their duties for a nanosecond. It appears he's mistaken. "I actually thought that Ma'am Annette was beyond doing things like that, especially at such an important event like this."

The colonel shrugged, he was still trying to simmer down a bit. When Durand had the audacity to overwhelm his neural dampener with her entire psionic might with no regard for his safety and privacy, he couldn't help but feel some measure of anger and hate at the psionic... but he knew that she wasn't thinking properly. "There are a lot of things even the entirety of XCOM doesn't know about that woman. But we've pried enough to know that she'd rather shoot herself in the throat with her own alloy cannon than see our race living in peace with the things she hated throughly her whole life."

"Yeah, I guess assigning the most xenophobic human who ever lived here with your team isn't the smartest thing your director could think of doing, given that he probably knows what she's bound to do right here, in close proximity to x-rays." Carlock replied, glancing at the official he was supposed to guard to make sure he's still safe and still distracted as she chatted away the seconds by talking with a fascinated-looking salarian.

Shepard grimaced, inwardly expressing his agreement with Carlock. "Director Faust expected nothing less than an alien ambush, lieutenant. You can't blame him for being cautious when all attempts at negotiations with ethereals in the past only led to death and abductions. Our diplomatic history when dealing with extraterrestrials isn't exactly what I'd call spotless, if you know what I mean."

"Heh, you have a point. Though, it's good of the Feds to send us some of their officials; they should be better than the lot of us army boys at this diplomacy nonsense." The Preserver said, taking notice of the aliens his unit and the XCOM agents were walking beside with. "So, colonel, what do _you_ think of these aliens?"

Shepard stared at Carlock for several seconds. Just when the lieutenant thought to rethink his choice of words, the colonel spoke up.

"It's actually great to not be attacked for once, and talking with the matriarch was nice. I think I'm happier if it stayed that way from now on; it'd be a shame if these x-rays ended up under Dr. Garamond's 'benelovent' care."

...

_**GMH, L1, Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1625 hours**_

_**Fleet Admiral Draynor**_

Draynor had stayed silent since he talked to the colonel minutes ago, and still didn't feel inclined to talk thus far. In fact, since his defeat at the ill-fated raid on the Citadel, the admiral found himself lacking all the energy and motivation to speak on his own volition; he only ever talked when someone addressed him directly, or when he needed to give out orders.

Even now, when the circumstances called for sitting down and talking with the creatures that gave his almighty, once-undefeatable fleet its first ever trashing, Draynor still couldn't find it in him to be his usual self and express himself. When one of Shepard's agents went rogue and tried to bring an abrupt end to the negotiations, the admiral didn't even utter a word to call for back-up; he merely snatched an arc thrower from one of his (obviously green and inexperienced) distracted Preserver bodyguards, walked up solemnly to Durand and gave her a bit of a shock.

When Draynor and his mixed-race group entered the meeting hall, Draynor immediately went for the seats near the front among his fellow Federal comrades, while Shepard and the asari matriarch found themselves a spot in some other part of the room. Having essentially delegated his duties to the colonel, the admiral was free to do whatever he pleased while everyone waited for Prime Minister Grìmketelson to finish up at Terra Nova.

The fleet admiral brought up his omni-tool suddenly. Quickly brushing through his files and personal data, Draynor selected one particular folder to open ー one that he created only a few days ago, following his fleet's forced departure from X-Ray Sierra. The folder at hand only contained a single, inconsequential-seeming vid, which only lasted a few seconds. Without further ado, Draynor double-tapped the vid's icon.

_Legionnaire..._ the fleet admiral's thoughts resounded as he viewed the Vextrenese letters emblazoned on the hull of the turian command vessel. He silently watched as the alien dreadnought shook and shuddered as it primed its main gun and discharged it against an unseen target, presumably the _Annihilation_. Another few seconds have passed before the vid reached the end of its recording duration, automatically sending Draynor back to the root folder.

"Ah, a participant."

Draynor flinched in surprise. He glanced behind him and was greeted by the sight of the turian ambassador, a three-digited hand of hers placed on the back of his seat, nonchalantly leaning her weight on it. She had apparently been watching him with her bodyguards for a bit of time now.

"Fleet admiral." Ambassador Moderatus greeted. "I'm assuming you were one of the humans who joined the surprise attack on our Citadel?" She quietly inquired.

The fleet admiral grimaced, but his unamused expression upon reminiscing his loss went unseen behind his mask. "Your excellency," He greeted back tersely. "Yes, I was. In fact, I was the one who _led _the attack."

"I can see it as such." Moderatus kept a neutral, diplomatic tone-of-voice. "If you don't mind be saying, I must say – the decision to launch an assault on the most heavily defended space station in all of Council space was tantamount to suicide, and the notion itself only feasible to a foolishly fearless madman. Have you known that even if the Citadel was undefended, our vessels would have an easy time reinforcing it from all corners of the galaxy thanks to the prothean relays?"

Fighting the urge to snap back with a condescendingly racist retort, Draynor steeled himself. He reassured himself that he'd have to endure only a few more hours before this debacle should come to an end.

"No, I must admit. There had been a severe underestimation in our plans, which as you could've guessed, ended in disaster at this 'Citadel' of yours." Just then, his tone subtly shifted, his practiced words scarcely hiding the vitriol and hate enveloping them. "If I were you, I'd savor that victory, your excellency. Rest assured, we will _not_ make the same mistake ever again."

"Aha," Moderatus made a sound of amusement. "And indeed you may do wise to learn from that mistake. The next time you try something along the lines of that invasion, we won't be found wanting any less than you'd claim your own race to be completely prepared." The ambassador's tone lightened once more, her face adopting an expression that Draynor can identify as the turians' version of a smirk. "But, I too must concede that your race deserves at least the measure of credit..." She said, to the fleet admiral's mild curiosity.

"To clarify, by successfully launching an invasion on the Citadel, you humans have achieved something that hasn't been done in, well, forever. This is more than enough to make humans the most dangerous ー and most worthy ー threat the Council races have ever faced thus far. You might have failed your objectives, but you and all your kind at least have something to be proud of."

The fleet admiral craned his head to Moderatus, his expression that of astonishment. In turn, the turian ambassador continued, "There had been attempts to breach the Citadel's defense screens by other parties in the past, but unlike you, _those_ aggressors never made it past our supposedly impregnable defenses. We thought we'd be safe in our heavily fortified space station, but humans have proved us gravely wrong by utilizing unorthodox tactics we thought no one would be smart enough to do. For that fact alone, I think more than a few of my kin found new respect for your race, even if only because of how unexpectedly powerful you are in war."

"Hmph. I find myself doubting that, ambassador." Draynor said, making his skepticism apparent by turning his back to Moderatus again.

"Oh, _admiral_. _Anything_ and _everything _I say holds truth, rest assured_." _Moderatus insisted, never losing her compelling way of speaking._ "_A lot of my colleagues in the Hierarchy have made it clear that they'd value you more as an ally... not the contrar_y."_

While Draynor would also like an end to the war at hand, he saw the notion of having aliens as allies rather absurd. "I'm afraid an alliance of any sort between my race and yours would be impossible, ambassador. And I have little hope that your actions here today would have any sort of worth tomorrow."

"Nothing is impossible. One must never lose hope, admiral." Moderatus spoke with enthusiasm, though Draynor had a feeling that she was up to something she wasn't inclined to tell him. "But enough about our hopes for the future; Right now, I have something else I have in mind I'm asking we should discuss."

The fleet admiral shrugged and nodded. "What do you have for us to talk about, turian?"

"The incident earlier with one of your colleagues ー Durand was her name, I think." Moderatus talked as she walked to a seat opposite Draynor, while the four hulking bodyguards she had for protection took their positions adjacent the admiral's own seat, and also adjacent to hers.

She_ boxed me in,_ Draynor's thoughts resounded. _Th__ere's no way out of this. I'm fucking trapped._

Moderatus seemed to have read his thoughts, for she now wore the same smug grin she adopted earlier. "I wonder, why did she do that?"

"Ah, the famed Colonel Annette Durand." The fleet admiral slowly started, emphasizing each word he spoke. "She went by many names and titles throughout the years... among those were 'Ethereal Killer', 'Alienbane', the 'Xenosmasher' and every other corny, xenophobic epithet her comrades can think of. But really, if there was a college degree in the field of murdering extraterrestrials, Durand would never even have to study; she'd have already passed her course several hundred times over before she even stepped over college grounds ー she really hates aliens _that_ much."

"That doesn't answer my question, fleet admiral. Besides, I'm already quite aware of that fact, she said so herself to my face." Moderatus said, leaning over her seat and looking intently at Draynor. "What I need to know is _why _she hates us so."

Fortunately for the fleet admiral, he was given authorization to access Durand's personal files decades prior. He should know enough about her to satisfy Moderatus' curiosity. "From what I read and from what I heard from my contacts and personal acquaintances, Colonel Durand lost her entire family to an alien invasion almost two centuries ago."

The ambassador seemed taken aback a little. "Two centuries, let alone one? How long does your species live before succumbing to old age? Some races in the Council don't even have the luxury of having lifespans as long as the others like my salarian compatriots here."

Draynor thought about it for a moment. As of present, he was thirty-five and was in possession of one cranial implant, while his unaugmented mother still lived at one-hundred and thirty seven, and she should be strong and healthy enough to live through another decade or two.

"That really depends from person to person, ambassador. We humans can live normally live to see a century and another half after that, but we also have access to genetic augmentation technology ー a very sophisticated one at that."

"I take it that Colonel Durand is augmented, then?" The turian asked.

"Obviously, she is. If an augmented human's life isn't cut short by unnatural causes, there should be at least four centuries they can live through without dying of old age." The fleet admiral informed. "Back to the original topic at hand, there was an invasion of our homeworld of Earth long ago ー by a race of Gifted aliens called the Ethereal Ones, which had several other lesser races as their slaves of war. Throughout the course of the invasion, it's commonly estimated that more than four-tenths of our population of seven billion people lost their lives, and France, one of our homeworld's major countries, was particularly shot up quite hard compared to the rest of the world."

The human took in a breath. "Being a resident of France, Durand regrettably lost her entire family and most of her relatives and friends to alien forces during a siege. It didn't help that the city she lived in, Reims, was bombarded from orbit and reduced to ashes just a few days after the initial attack. And after suffering so much because of aliens and reduced to scrounging the ruined remains of the French countryside for food, yet again she suffered some more when she was abducted by the ethereals, pumped full of sedatives and experimented upon, thanks to her mind's unique ability to amplify existing psionic abilities."

While so far Moderatus hadn't shown any sympathy, she shifted on her seat when Draynor brought up psionics. "You use the term 'psionics' and 'Gifted' to refer to those strange abilities some of your kind possess, no? I've never seen psionics in action before, but some of my colleagues in the Hierarchy spoke of disturbing tales of how extremely organized and well-drilled lines of infantry disintegrating into unruly, flailing masses of childlike men when faced with enemy soldiers in powered armor trimmed in purple."

"I'm sorry, ambassador, but I'm not allowed to discuss anything about the Gift, especially with potential enemies." Draynor stated, crossing his arms.

"Well, alright." Though clearly disappointed, Moderatus still maintained her air of calm. "Carry on with the colonel then, admiral."

Going right back to where he stopped, Draynor continued, "After Durand was captured by the aliens, a terrorist organization called EXALT stormed the alien base she was held and took her in. It wasn't long before they learned of her abilities and subjected her to the same tortures the aliens inflicted, to further their own interests. After months of captivity, an allied, paramilitary force of armed operatives belonging to an alien-hunting organization I'm not authorized to name had rescued Durand from her captors' grasp after heavy fighting."

"It didn't take long before it was discovered that she hardened herself while under EXALT's care; she developed a liking to seeing both aliens and EXALT forces die by her own hands." The admiral said, his voice sounding a little strained. "Since our resistance forces are low enough on able men and women as it is, humanity's leaders deemed it fit to let Durand sate her bloodlust by recruiting her into the ranks of its defenders. Since then, her hatred for all things extraterrestrial grew as she climbed the ranks... and it didn't take much more before human forces turned the tide on the ethereals and pushed the them back out of Earth."

At the end of Draynor's lengthy explanation, the turian ambassador seemed more than satisfied. "Hmm, I suppose I can understand a person developing a xenophobic streak after having suffered so much because of extraterrestrial parties."

"And Durand is but one of billions of other humans, sharing the same, hostile sentiments about alien life," The fleet admiral forged further onwards. "With that in mind, you must understand that not a lot of my kind have some measure of faith in the negotiations we're undertaking today, and myself included. Chances are, your efforts here are already in vain, I'm afraid."

Moderatus shook her head at Draynor. "Must you be so cynical, admiral? Once I set my sights on a goal, I'll stop for nothing to make sure I'll get what I want ー your race's rampant alien racism be damned," The turian spoke with adamant conviction, which was something that Draynor couldn't help but admire, and be wary of. "Rest assured, a treaty will be brokered today. Failing that, peace will come between our races in the very near future... one way, or another."

Allowing his thoughts to entertain the immature notion of picturing Moderatus wearing typical Italian mafia garb – complete with an antique Thompson submachine-gun in her hands – Draynor could only smile a bit behind his mask. After all, it wasn't in his expectations to come across an alien so dead-set on putting an end to hostilities between the races. If only the ethereals ever considered diplomacy, things might have gone better than it is at the present time.

_Maybe, they're not what we've always taught they were, _the fleet admiral's thoughts resounded. "I... _admire_, your dedication to peace for all our kind, ambassador. I truly do." Even he couldn't believe what he was saying. "But I still have my doubts."

"It doesn't hurt to have a bit of faith, Fleet Admiral Norman." Moderatus said, her tone softening considerably, like the one a mother used to speak to her children. "I'd keep that in mind, if I were you."

Draynor nodded. "Hmf, if you say so."

...

_**GMH, L1, Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1640 hours**_

_**Colonel Shepard**_

"I don't believe you."

With the way the asari matriarch said her words so bluntly, Shepard's spirits sank a bit. "I have no reasons to lie to you now, matriarch. What I've said – the two invasions, the devastation of our homeworld, the casualties we've sustained as a race and the inevitable prejudice most of my kind developed _because _of the latter three are all quite true, I assure you."

Matriarch Derrosa seemed to pause to think for a while. "Oh, that's understandable. But what I'm having a hard time digesting is the part where you told me that your race – a primitive and militarily backwards one I'm afraid – successfully managed to beat back two simultaneous alien invasions and _still _manage to avoid extinction from the heavy casualties you've sustained. Any other race I know would crumble easily once faced with a second extraterrestrial attack shortly after another, _especially _with the amount of medieval tech you said your race was forced to rely on at the early stages of the wars."

The colonel shook his head. He already said much, but if the negotiations were to have any hope of being successful that day, he'd just have to soldier on. "And indeed we would have faced death and extinction if the Ethereal Ones simply rushed our defenses and got done with it. But instead, they were testing us humans to see if we can be assimilated into their army of slaves."

"Elaborate, please." Derrosa muttered impatiently.

Shepard obliged quickly. "The ethereals wanted to uplift us for war, so that we may protect them from some sort of future unspecified threat. Instead of sending an all-powerful army to finish off every country as quickly as possible, the aliens sent small battalion-sized units for us to wipe out and scavenge for their weapons and armor tech." He explained as truthfully as he could,

"It was their plan all along – for us to take the valuable scraps from their bullet-riddled bodies and their crashed aircraft. As the invasion went on, our military forces grew stronger as we implemented more of their reverse-engineered technology into our arsenal... just as they planned we would. Unfortunately for them, humans have been a bit too good at the reverse-engineering act, and we grew too powerful for even them to handle. By the end of the war, we blew up their headquarters and their flagship and took the remains of their leftover technology for ourselves. _That_'s how us humans ended up today."

"And I assume these 'psionics' are from your invaders as well?" The matriarch queried.

It was there where the colonel drew the line, however. "Yes... and no. But that's as far as I'll go to tell you anything concerning psionics, asari. You must understand, it's not something we wish to see turned against us in the future."

Derrosa gave Shepard a _very _displeased look, but she seemed to know whenever she should push her luck with the information she's given. "Eh, _fine_. I suppose with such a... checkered, history with extraterrestrials, it's somewhat justifiable that some of you still possess intense animosity when it comes to alien life. Just... don't let the events of earlier today happen again, alright, colonel?"

"I'm sure we'll be more careful on who we bring on negotiations next time, matriarch." Shepard said. "Are you satisfied with my explanation? On how we held our ground and pushed back our would-be conquerors?"

The asari simply shook her head. "Of course not. I think my superiors back home will need more than what you told me in order for them to believe you. A monumental amount of data will be needed to be exchanged between the Council, and your Federation."

The colonel resisted the urge to sigh. "Understandable. Does that mean we'll have access to historical archives about the races in the Citadel too?"

Derrosa nodded firmly. "It's only natural, colonel. We take, and we'll give." Believing that the human soldier had nothing more left to say, the matriarch reclined on her seat and took a deep breath. "There's one other thing that struck my curiosity."

"And what's that, alien?" Shepard inquired warily. He noted that the asari was looking straight at where his face should be, had he not been wearing a helmet.

"I haven't seen a human's face up close yet," She said, with deliberate care and thoughtfulness. "I was told that your kind looked remarkably like us, with only a few key features keeping our races different,"

"Indeed... we do." Shepard drawled. He knew that the alien wanted to see, and for the sake of avoiding being perceived as rude, complied. He inputted some commands to his suit's internal systems, and within a second, the magnetic locks destabilized and the helmet itself broke apart into tiny sheets before promptly disappearing within his suit's collar. In response to the fascinated look the matriarch was giving him as she studied his features, the colonel did a few of his usual facial expressions, before settling on his most common one ー a dour, stiff upper-lipped expression; the face of a consummate professional.

Unexpectedly, the asari laughed at Shepard's face. With a bit of surprise and mock-offense, he frowned at Derrosa. "I can't be uglier than a turian, right?"

Derrosa calmed herself shortly. Her bodyguards seemed either busy looking at the alien's face, or were simply confused at what's happening. "Heh, you must scowl an awful lot, Colonel Shepard."

"Only in wartime." Shepard shrugged his armored shoulders and broke his indifferent look with a smile. _Matters are progressing smoothly... excellent._

...

**_GMH, L1, Lingshan Station_**

**_July 26th, 2157 - 1700 hours_**

**_Prime Minister_**_** Grìmketelson**_

A phantom rendition of Prime Minister Grìmketelson's form materialized just behind the door where the negotiations with the Council races are to be held. It took a few more seconds before the psionic human leader's consciousness took over his decoy. As planned there already was a unit of Preservers at his side, and strangely, their stances seemed less tense than before ー their weapons clipped to their sides and away from their arms.

"Fleet Admiral Draynor and the alien diplomats are inside, prime minister." Captain Radović informed, taking his position adjacent to the room's double doors and holding it open for Grim. "And Squads Theta, Kappa and Lambda are in positions up above the hall. Just say the word, and we'll provide sniper fire if the situation requires it."

Grim cheerfully greeted and thanked the Preserver captain after shaking himself fully awake. Entering the grand meeting hall, he was greeted by a sight that was far better from what he had come to expect to see, which went along the lines of a massive, incredibly gory slaughter between the races. In fact, the very first thing he thought would greet him as he walked inside was a wayward bullet to his immaterial head.

What with how the aliens remained alive and standing in the midst of the Federal soldiers and officials with their internal organs still _inside _their bodies and how the humans seemed to inclined to remain tolerant and passive around extraterrestrials, Grim reminded himself to put Draynor up for a medal for keeping the men from doing something decidedly unpleasant to the foreign guests. Hell, a medal for every human in the room if he could help it. He was, after all, known for his kindness to the Federation's soldiery... or as President Lazarenko would call it in his own words: 'a pathological obsession with pleasing our defenders with excessive generosity'.

"Prime minister, you're here." Matriarch Derrosa stood from her seat, as did Shepard, who lacked his helmet, for some reason. "Let me gather the ambassadors, and we can begin immediately after."

The prime minister nodded. "Take your time, matriarch. Have your colleagues walk to the end of the hall, at the oval table. We'll talk there."

Once everyone was settled and most of the alien diplomatic detail accounted for, with much enthusiasm, the prime minister began with, "How is everyone today, hm?" He queried everyone in his immediate vicinity with an inane, seemingly irrelevant question, to the puzzlement of some of the aliens, and to the mild amusement of others.

"Some of us are still a little shaken at the outburst one of your agents made," One salarian, the ambassador, informed. "It was rather fortunate that she was stopped before she could do any _real_ harm."

At this, Grim's good mood was put to an abrupt end. "An outburst, ambassador?"

"Yes... a colonel of yours going by the name of Durand." It was the turian ambassador's turn to speak. "Apparently, she _just _couldn't stand being around us aliens for long; Fleet Admiral Draynor and Colonel Shepard told us that Colonel Durand had come to expect to kill us at some point during this meeting... which was a couple of hours ago." She stated the facts forthrightly, without a tinge of resentment in her voice. "

Grìmketelson frowned. "Erm, I'm... sorry about that. I thought I'd start things up with a bit of small talk, but look where _that _led us to," He laughed nervously. "Eheh, anyways, who'd like to come up with the terms for peace first?"

The prime minister noted how the matriarch hesitated before she primed herself to speak, "The Council would like no less than a full withdrawal of all alien military forces in all our occupied worlds, the safe return of any and all of our captive soldiers, which, if our calculations are correct, should be around seven hundred thousand turian, asari and salarian troopers,"

"Which," Ambassador Moderatus cut in, "-consisted chiefly of turian soldiers; about seventy-nine percent."

Matriarch Derrosa gave a curt nod at the turian diplomat. "Of course, your excellency. On with our terms, we'd also like the Federation to hand over all stolen Council hardware and property, which includes captured vessels, weapons and armor tech, and all the recovered bodies of those killed in action fighting for us."

Grim put a closed fist to his mouth. He spared a glance at Draynor and Shepard to his side, and saw how their irritation at the aliens' terms showed on their faces. "Hm, I suppose you don't expect us to simply agree with your... unsavory terms without getting anything useful in return, yes?"

"We'd be incredibly dense and naïve to assume." Ambassador Keldwicz said. "In exchange for all that, the Council would like to establish trading and commerce with the Federal government, along with several shipments of our most advanced civilian and research and development technology. And of course, it'll be only natural for us to go through the process of handing out the appropriate amount of reparations in the form of credits and supplies, as an... apology of sorts. What's more, we'll even be more than glad to accept your race within our galactic community, provided you agree and abide with our terms."

The human leader raised a phantasmal brow. "Trade and technology, your excellencies? No offense intended, but a trade agreement is only of negligible value to us at this moment in time, and the vast majority of your technological advances are all quite insignificant compared to what we already possess ー especially when it comes to our defensive arsenal... though some of your peace-time tech did catch the president's attention..."

"Ah, but chances are, you haven't seen what a client race of ours called the volus are capable of, provided they were given another trade route to busy themselves with," Ambassador Moderatus told Grim. "If I may, I can send you omni-tool data on what our exosuited friends are quite adept at doing, prime minister."

Grim willed his psionic avatar to shrug its shoulders. "I don't see why not, but I'm afraid my omni-tool appears to be already full with government data. Can you send it to Captain Radović over here?" He gestured at the Preserver bodyguard standing by his side.

Moderatus gave the human soldier a cursory glance before nodding her agreement. "Will do." She brought up her omni-tool and navigated her way to her public documents folder. "I have a feeling that when we put our hearts and minds to it, our races can accomplish many great things, prime minister. Together."

...

Several hours have passed, and a great deal of information was exchanged between the races. Matriarch Derrosa and Ambassadors Moderatus and Keldwicz didn't seem at all bothered at handing out the answers to almost all the questions the humans asked, and in turn, Prime Minister Grim did all he could to answer all the questions the aliens could ask him about, barring _those _questions that would give the Council races access to classified Federal information, like psionics and directed-energy weapons tech. Matters like the bloodied history of mankind, though, were all fair game.

"-and with the help of ethereal medical tech, our scientists were able to completely cure almost all diseases that had been plaguing mankind since the day we came into existence." Grim finished his answer for Keldwicz's question. "There had been staunch resistance from a large part of the remaining human populace against the introduction of higher-level, Meld-powered biological and cybernetic augmentations to the human body – and there still is, by the way – but with time, they slowly decided to quiet down after our more recent technologies started to implement use of cybernetic augs for efficient use."

The salarian ambassador was a bit surprised at his answer. "My... then that could mean that rampant body modification is – heavens forbid – _legal_ in human laws?"

"Absolutely." Admiral Draynor answered with surety. "We believe that what the people do to their bodies is their own business, and their business alone. Though that doesn't mean that _all _humans are augmented as of today; only about a quarter of us even dare to have bio-augmentations of a significant kind. Discrimination against the enhanced portion of our population by the unenhanced is regrettable, but still widespread."

"That... puts a bit of a dent in our planned proposal." The turian ambassador pitched in unenthusiastically, clutching at the edge of her piece of the table.

"And I think it's about time you tell us about that proposal, your excellency," Shepard spoke, sounding stern. "The sooner we can get a treaty in place, the better for all of us."

The three alien representatives looked at Shepard collectively, then at each other. Keldwicz nodded at Derrosa and the matriarch slowly diverted her sights to the human prime minister. She cleared her throat and steeled herself, but she wasn't successful at making herself look confident and collected.

"The Councilors are offering the Federation of Mankind a spot in the Citadel races. We're extending our hand for the humans to join our galactic community, for the benefit and prosperity of all sentient beings." The asari matriarch declared.

"In addition, our leaders are also willing to break tradition in order to offer the humans a seat in the Council, right at the moment in time you decide to join us." Keldwicz added. He spoke nonchalantly, as if he cared little for the words he spoke. "Normally, it'd take a single race a period of a century to even consider petitioning the Councilors for a seat. Think of our very generous offer to you as... something along the lines of _special_."

Grim sported a blank face. "Well, we're very flattered by the offer, of course, but such a decision as this is too important for the likes of me to accept. This will require President Lazarenko's own attention, excellencies. And I warn you, this might take a while."

"We understand." Derossa gave a half-nod at the prime minister. "We can wait."

While the prime minister busied himself establishing a communications link to the Federation government's supreme leader, the alien representatives remained suspiciously silent and unmoving; their faces completely serious and stoic. It's as if they were hoping for something to succeed, but were worried of a high chance of failure. It didn't take long for Grim's call to be automatically redirected to the president's personal comms.

"Sir, it's Danival," Grim started. His illusion made an act of looking like it was talking through a comm-bead through its ear, but it was just for show. The real Grim addressed the President through an implant imbedded deep within his skull. "The aliens are offering us a proposal. They want us to come and join the Council races – their little galactic neighborhood."

An uncomfortable pause. "...and?" A low, whisper-like voice responded back.

"They're also offering us a seat in the Council. The data the labrats sucked out of the databases in the alien warship wrecks and sent me via overnet say something about electing our very own councilor to the Council – the human race's voice in galactic affairs. I don't know what we'll be expected to give out to the aliens once we join them, but I'm thinking about mutually beneficial trade agreements and the like. What do you think I should tell them, sir?"

"I see." President Lazarenko talked quietly. "But what about the _rest _of the data? Have you spared the time to read that, Danival?"

Grim felt quite stupid and irritated at himself for failing to remember to read about the rest of the alien data. "Uh... I'm afraid not, sir. I got too occupied with those damned Terra Novan agitators. You know how it works."

A forced-sounding chuckle reverberated through the comms in the president's line. "Heh, then you've got yourself some reading to do, mister prime minister. Once you're done with that, I trust that you should be smart enough to know what my answer to the aliens' offers will be. Goodbye, Danival."

"Mister president, please wait; you need—" Lazarenko abruptly cut comms. Grim grimaced sourly. Still, it was quite hard to stay angry at the president, though. He had a lot of work to do in his own little realm in the Federation government. The prime minister never even met with the president in the flesh, but Grim believed that Lazarenko suffered much more than he did for the sake of humanity, and that mankind's leader deserved every bit of everyone's respect and admiration for that.

Though he held Lazarenko in high regard, his respect for his leader did little to dissuade Grim from having persistent thoughts of passing down his post to some other unlucky bastard who was competent, ambitious, self-sacrificing and _stupid_ enough to inherit the office of the Federation's second most powerful leader.

"I really, _really _need to resign..." The prime minister talked to himself as he accessed the old database psionically, with the help of the machines hooked up to his body. He only needed to highlight a few things inside a certain folder before a surge of information on his chosen subject rushed to his head like the crashing waves of water before a shore.

...

_**Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1715 hours**_

_**Matriarch Derrosa**_

_"_What's he doing?" The matriarch whispered to Keldwicz beside her. They were situated in a remote corner of the hall, surrounded by their bodyguards and a few other colleagues. The ambassadors made absolutely sure that they were far enough from the humans to hear them talk. "Use your STG training; why is he staring off into the walls like that?"

Indeed, the human prime minister in the distance seemed to look as if he just witnessed a murder; with wide, blank eyes and a disturbed expression, he seemed completely focused on the phone call he was receiving.

"I don't bloody know!" The salarian 'ambassador' responded haughtily. Thank the goddess he spoke very quietly. "I'm a field agent pretending to be a spineless diplomat who barely knows what he's doing, and I've _very _minimal training on anything xeno-related. Reading bizarre microexpressions on aliens we just went in contact with for a few weeks is scarcely an expertise of mine, matriarch."

Derrosa gave Keldwicz a sore look of irritation. "Are you daft? The humans look almost exactly like _my_ species, dammit! They even use the same facial expressions as the majority of the races!" She made a subdued gesture at the prime minister. "You've got those implants imbedded in those eyes; _use them_!"

Keldwicz bared his teeth at the matriarch. He was about to retort something insulting, when Grìmketelson cut him off by suddenly raising his voice so loud, everybody heard him.

"Ehem!" He raised his arms in the air briefly. Oddly, his tone of voice, which was previously laid-back and easygoing, now possessed an edge to it. "Everyone! I've an announcement to make! Listen to me."

The congregation of species put aside what they were doing to direct their sights on the human prime minister. Derrosa glanced at her fellow ambassadors with a worried look on her face; there was something seriously wrong with the situation – she just couldn't place what it was. And from the expressions of her fellow diplomats, the matriarch knew that they felt the same.

"I just had a talk with President Lazarenko, the Federation head!" Grim announced after all attention was shifted to him. "Previously, the three Citadel ambassadors had asked of me, will I speak for all of humanity, and allow the Federation join them in their progressive galactic community in the stars – for the betterment of all the galaxy's sentient beings? With a big grin on my face, will I say "Yes!" and let our great and powerful society – which our ancestors fought hard and _died_ for in the past – be peacefully merged with that of the alien, who were viewed by everyone as mankind's eternal nemesis ever since the day the zudjari first made hostile contact?"

The matriarch bit her lip in apprehension. The moment of truth has arrived. The fate of the Citadel races – whether the diplomatic party went home with a powerful new ally at the Council's beck and call – hinges on that critical moment.

"My answer is, indeed, yes." Prime Minister Grìmketelson uttered solemnly. "Yes, I'd be more than happy for the Federation to join the Citadel races if it meant that there will be everlasting peace, order and stability between mankind, and the alien."

Matriarch Derrosa gladly let out the breath she was holding back in overwhelming relief. The mission was, despite every unsavory thing that transpired, a resounding success. The future will be brighter than ever.

"Don't let your guard down, matriarch." With an uncharacteristically steely voice, Ambassador Moderatus tapped Derrosa's shoulder, to her mild surprise. "It isn't over yet, I say."

"However," Immediately after the matriarch thought that nothing else could spoil the delightful moment of sweet success, the prime minister began to talk again. "In the face of such disgustingly undesirable terms that the ambassadors 'accidentally' neglected to bring to light, I'm afraid that the action of joining the Citadel would bring nothing of significant value to the Federation as a whole. I will not tarnish my good name by accepting the Councilors' offer of 'alliance' with our government, which in essence, basically meant our vassalization to the Council."

The use of the word 'vassalization' offended the asari diplomat, but she wouldn't deny that by joining the Citadel races, humanity would be forced to hand over massive amounts of each and every one of their advanced ethereal technology to the Council for reverse-engineering and eventual mass production – spreading their hard-earned tech to everyone else and robbing them of their most effective advantage against their adversaries on the likely chance that they eventually decided to break free from the Citadel through military force.

What's more, the Federal government would be expected to pay some amount of credits each year to the Council as part of their reparations for the war damages they caused, and the heavily bio-augmented part of the human populace will be forced to abide to Council laws on bio-engineering – stripped of their enhancements and their bodies reverted back into the acceptable standard.

"The Federation of Mankind shall remain an independent power – free and untainted by the clutches of those thieves in the Citadel Council who wished to simply take from us our rewards for righteously defending our fatherland from otherworldly invaders." The prime minister declared, and Derrosa's spirits promptly sank. "If the Councilors wanted access to our technology, we won't just give it to them. Let them take what they think is theirs not through exploiting our desire for peace, but through the path mankind took against the ethereal threat: total war."

Ambassador Moderatus folded her arms. "As was expected, they found out our ruse." She spoke to her colleagues. "It appears that merely counting on the humans to _not _find out about the terms that will apply to them the moment their government joined the Citadel wasn't enough to see our plans through, hm?" Sarcastically, she talked. "Maybe now the Council would realize that humans aren't naive in the slightest, after all."

Derrosa ignored the turian ambassador. Though she was still very baffled at how the humans found out about the hidden terms, she knew that there was still hope of salvaging the situation. "Prime minister...? First of all, I'd like to apologize on behalf of this diplomatic party for deliberately withholding information on the terms and conditions that will apply to your kind if you decided to join the Citadel. We didn't expect you to find out about–"

"To find out what, matriarch?" Colonel Shepard interrupted in apparent anger. "We've dealt with this sort of underhanded tactic as a species for far longer than you might expect. You were lucky that my superiors chose me to represent my organization; if someone else in my stead realized that you intended to steal our tech, they could have easily done something _really _brash and stupid. Do you honestly think that we'd be naive enough to take your word at face value – that we won't check to see if you might be keeping secrets from us?"

"At ease, colonel." Grim put a palm up at Shepard in a placating manner. Turning to regard the matriarch, he said, "Your apology will be considered. What do you intend to say?"

The asari gulped down a breath. "I... I understand that you refused our offer to join the Citadel, but I beseech you, prime minister. Let us broker a treaty – we will ask of nothing more from you except for an end to the unjust state of conflict between our races."

"Understood, matriarch." With no more cheer from his usually mirthful voice, the human prime minister nodded in a robotic fashion. "You must understand, the Federation's current interests lie only with peace; we never wanted anything from the Citadel, only for you to leave us be to attend to our own problems."

"Yes... the fringe world insurgencies and the terrorist organization called EXALT. The fleet admiral told us about them." Moderatus said. "That said, keep in mind that with knowledge of our existence, any insurgent groups you may have might spill over to our territories and become _our _problems. We might be able to provide your navy with assistance if needed."

"I won't recommend that," Draynor cut in. "If EXALT or any other terrorist organization from Federal space causes any problems in Citadel territory, you're very much welcome to defend yourselves. As of present, most of our counter-terrorist forces are automated hunter flotillas consisting chiefly of Lotus cyberdisks. If a Citadel fleet moved into our territory to assist these drones, their onboard combat VIs might mistake your forces for enemy vessels and open fire, causing a diplomatic disaster between us."

"You'll have plenty of time to talk about that subject after we devise a peace treaty," Grim told the fleet admiral, who backed off immediately. "Matriarch, if you'd please. We want nothing less than to restore the _status quo ante bellum_ – as if this war never even happened; as if our races never met. If this isn't enough for you, then let me inform you that we'll also be returning all captured space vessels, prisoners of war, and equipment seized from conquered Citadel military bases."

Sighing in defeat, Derrosa brought up her omni-tool. "I'll tell the Councilors that we all want an end to the war, nothing more, nothing less. You won't hear of us coming over to your territory unless something pressing has occurred on our side of the grass. Are the terms of this white peace satisfying to you, prime minister?"

The prime minister, after a moment's hesitation, nodded. "More than enough. Now that our main business is concluded, I'd like to ask your diplomatic party to depart now, matriarch. We've been stretching our generosity thin already."

"Erm, wait..." As she stood up, Derrosa put down a hand on her piece of the table. "Before we leave, it is required of me to perform a mind-link with a human; join minds with one, in essence. I think Colonel Shepard would do, so long as he doesn't have any objections with having his mind prodded, of course."

"And why is that?" Fleet Admiral Draynor asked. "We've heard of this 'joining' process through the salvaged databanks in captured turian vessels, but the data is incomplete because of its damaged state."

Ambassador Keldwicz spoke up. "Well, for the asari, melding minds allows them to transfer information to be exchanged from one person to another, and information from the asari can be transfered to the human as well. It's much like how data is uploaded to a device."

"If that's the case, then I refuse." Shepard retorted swiftly. "By linking minds with me, you can easily take in all the classified Federation secrets in there for yourselves, up to including how our weapons tech works. I can't allow that to happen, you can't convince me."

"I'd never do that! I thought we've already made it clear that we wanted to take nothing more from you except a peace treaty!" Derrosa couldn't prevent herself from raising her voice. "You're a soldier – you've seen the worst of what the battlefields could give! Let me see what you've seen, so that I may better understand your people's plight!"

Shepard was clearly affected by the matriarch's words, by how his form immediately tensed up and turned rigid. "...No, matriarch. I actually thought that I can put some of my trust on you, which isn't something I just say to everyone. But then you very nearly saddled our government with unfair hidden terms, proving you and your colleagues to be unworthy of trust. I won't risk it."

"Hold on just one second," The turian ambassador entered the fray. "Clearly the colonel doesn't want his mind accessed, but since Matriarch Zarina wanted to experience the hellish conditions of the human wars for herself, why not have a certain other colonel who went through the very worst the Ethereal Ones unleashed upon Earth and her homeland of France?"

"What? Your excellency, you're not seriously suggesting..." Draynor started to speak, but Shepard abruptly cut him off halfway.

"Wait. That's... that's _brilliant! _How come I haven't thought of it sooner?" The colonel snapped together two metallic fingers. "Colonel Durand's the _perfect_ choice for the matriarch!"

Derrosa was flabbergasted. "Err... excuse me?"

"Unlike proper enlisted personnel like me, Ma'am Durand was never actually integrated into our soldiers' ranks; officially, she's a civilian – her 'rank' isn't formally sanctioned by the higher-ups, and it's more of a nickname than anything. Not to say that she did not _deserve _to be a colonel; she went through hell to save Earth, after all." Shepard explained.

"Being a civilian, Durand was never told much classified Federal information, which makes having the matriarch meld minds with her relatively safe for our secrets. What's more, due to her high resistance to Advent psi-attacks, and our organization's pressing issue of Meld shortage, we never bothered equipping Durand's cerebral cortex with the neural feedback and dampener aug, so linking minds with her should be relatively safe."

Steeling herself for what's to come, Derrosa gave the colonel a hard look. "Then it's settled. Take me to Colonel Durand."

...

_**The Sickbay – Lingshan Station**_

_**July 26th, 2157 - 1750 hours**_

**_Colonel Shepard/Matriarch Derrosa/Colonel Durand_**

"Wait here, alien." The colonel told the matriarch before warily entering Durand's quarters.

The two agents Shepard sent to carry Durand's unconscious body stood up from their seats and saluted when their commanding officer slipped in. "Colonel Jonathan, sir!"

"Call me Shepard," He quickly put in. "How is she — will the colonel be up and about soon?"

"She's still out cold, sir." One of the soldiers, Field Agent Ruslan Mitrofanov, reported. He was reading a file from his omni-tool as he stated: "The arc thrower Admiral Draynor used was a recent model from the Federal armory: the Tempest Mk III. According to the AT manual I've got over here... Ma'am Durand won't be awake for another nine hours, and that's not counting the Kachinsky sedative you injected into her bloodstream."

The colonel nodded. "That's good. We don't want her waking up and finding her mind psionically hooked up to an asari."

"Excuse us, sir?" The other soldier, Corporal Eunike Lillis, curiously inquired, folding her armored hands.

"Nothing too important, agent. We made a deal with the aliens earlier: they pull back and negotiate a white peace between our governments, and Matriarch Derrosa gets a few minutes scanning Colonel Durand's head for memories." Shepard looked behind his shoulder, to the door. "Derrosa! You can step inside, now."

Shepard watched impatiently as the asari diplomat warily entered the sickbay, her gaze darting all over the white-painted walls. "Thank you, colonel. Will you three give us some room while I perform the joining on her?" The matriarch gestured at Durand's unmoving, still-armored body, lain in an orderly fashion over an elevated stretcher.

"We're watching you, asari." The colonel warned tersely. "Don't try anything you'll later regret on our comrade. Agents, clear out!" Like a shot, the three XCOM troopers exited the room, leaving Matriarch Derrosa alone with Durand. They took their positions behind a large two-way window with a clear view of the space station sickbay, making their observations in the matriarch there.

"Forgive me for speaking up, sir, but why would the aliens want to probe Ma'am Durand's mind? All she knows about XCOM were all declassified and provided to the public at large decades ago." Corporal Lillis turned her head to the side and questioned her commanding officer as her helmet disassembled itself into sheets and disappeared under her collar. "The old colonel hardly knows how our tech works, much less—"

"As it turns out, the asari have the ability to initiate some sort of psi-tecnique that allows memory transfers between one of them, and another person." Shepard offhandedly informed the agent, devoting most of his attention to Derrosa and Durand instead. He didn't even bother retracting his helmet into his armor. "The alien ambassador wants to see for herself the horrors the Advent inflicted upon us as a species."

Agent Mitrofanov heaved out a long, hearty laugh, which caused his exoframe to make metallic clunking sounds as the body it housed shook and shifted. "Hah! She wouldn't last one second just trying to understand the horrors Ma'am Annette went through over the course of he war – I mean, she'd go crazy! By the time she sees how chryssalids breed, she'll be begging us to pull her out of the colonel's head. Imagine that!"

"That's what we're trying to accomplish right now, agent." Shepard said, feeling the grip of his sidearm as he watched Matriarch Derrosa nervously place her hands over Durand's temples. He observed how the asari ambassador continue to have a noticeable lack of self-confidence. "With a little bit of hope and luck, once she experiences all the crap Durand's been through, she'd do her best to tell her kind to leave us be; humanity already had enough of this 'alien invasion' bullshit, and we'll never hesitate to cross any line just to defend our territory."

Before she could initiate the mind-link, Derrosa turned to her shoulder and looked at Shepard through the window, an inquiring look present on her alien features. The colonel nodded in response, and she slowly turned back to Durand. The matriarch closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she re-opened her eyes, Shepard and his two soldiers cringed in shock and revulsion when they saw her eyes change colors from a greenish-brown, to completely pitch-black.

"What the fuck!" Mitrofanov drew his alloy cannon in panic, while Lillis simply looked on in shock. The agent was about to bash open the window with the stock of his shotgun, when the colonel regained his senses and gripped Mitrofanov's gun before it made contact with the reinforced glass.

"Stand down, soldier." Shepard pushed Mitrofanov back, who nearly lost his footing at the amount of strength the colonel put into his armored arms. "If I needed you to barge into the sickbay and kill the diplomat, I'll damn well tell you! For now, stand down!"

"Yes, sir..." The agent sheepishly took up his earlier position beside the window. "Sorry, I guess being holed up in a medical room for hours made me a little jumpy."

Lillis folded her arms and shook her head. "This isn't the first time you got too impulsive for your own good..."

Inside the sickbay, Derrosa hardly noticed the commotion going on outside. She had just finished preparing Durand's mind for the joining, and made sure she won't come awake during the whole process. "Embrace eternity!" She cried out.

Derrosa was astonished at the amount of resistance the sedated Durand put up against the matriarch's attempts to link her mind with hers. Despite being centuries old and unconscious, the colonel clearly possessed a powerful mind that proved nothing like anything the asari ambassador ever experienced before. In fact, she was outright forced to fight back against Durand's hostile mind. In the end, Derrosa proved her thousand-year-old mind to be superior, but not without cost. She forced through the human's mental barriers with enough brute force that she felt exhaustion wash through her body. She shuddered to think what would have happened if Durand was conscious throughout the whole thing.

Instead of finding the memories she was looking for, however, Derrosa stumbled into a black void inside Durand's mind. She tried to remove herself from her location, but for some odd reason, she could not. It's as if her commands to her own consciousness were being blocked by something.

_BANG!_

The matriarch flinched at the sudden noise, she noted how it resembled the sound of a closed door being kicked open, complete with the hinges whining in protest.

"Go, go, go! Into the goddamn house, quickly!"

Through the darkness, Derrosa heard a muffled voice echo out. The martial-sounding tone of it suggested a soldier as its origin. "Come on, take up positions inside! Move it!" It continued to shout, its panic-stricken state evident.

Suddenly, the darkness disappeared, replaced by a hazy vision of what appears to be a bedroom, adorned with all the furniture and decorations as a room of its kind should. Besides the suspicious-looking glass bottles sitting on top of the dressing table, the haphazard, disorderly state of the interiors, and the old-fashioned, primitive style of the room itself, the bedroom appeared very plain and spartan.

Soon, the vision started to move just as it started to have finer clarity. Slowly, the vision's viewpoint changed, and a tired moan was heard. It didn't take long for the matriarch to deduce that she was viewing a memory through a most unusual way: through a person's own two eyes. Half-asleep, the unknown person shifted from their mattress and snatched a primitive clock, as Derrosa observed. The time was six in the morning, and the date was displayed on the bottom of the device as the second day of the month of March, on the 2015th year.

How the matriarch came to know what the human symbols displayed on the device baffled her. There was likely a force inside Durand's mind, feeding the asari information and knowledge, perhaps even unwittingly.

_BANG!_

Unexpectedly, the door to the bedroom burst open. A panicked shriek was heard, and a sleeved arm moved up to cover Derrosa's vision before lowering slowly again, revealing the form of a human dressed in a primitive battledress uniform and helmet, all dyed in urban camouflage colors. The human, clearly a soldier of a sort, wielded in his gloved hands a black-painted assault rifle assembled in a bullpup-style pattern like none Derrosa had seen before.

"What the fuck are you doing here? Wake up! Couldn't you notice the shitstorm going on outside?!" The soldier spoke in a strange, alien language that the matriarch nonetheless understood, for the same odd reason why she knew about the symbols on the clock. "Come on, get up! We need to get you out of here! Don't worry, your family's still downstairs with the captain! We're evacuating this city!"

A cough. "What?" And a disembodied female voice came from Derrosa herself. More specifically, the voice came from the person the asari was sharing a body with in the memory.

And unsurprisingly, it was Durand. "Wait, what's going on? What's happening outside?!"

The soldier did not respond immediately with words. Rather, he stomped inside the room and snatched Durand by an arm, dragging her out of the room forcefully. "Gee, I've got no fucking clue. Some mutant shitheads from another plane of existence shat so hard, that they arse-blasted themselves into our own fucking dimension! How's that for an explanation, lady?"

Once Durand got out of the room, Derrosa was taken by surprise at the presence of several more soldiers in defensive positions all over Durand's house. The house itself appeared very chaotic, as if a wild party of some sort had just recently occurred.

"You're hurting my arm!" Durand cried out pitifully to the soldier manhandling her. "Please let me go! I'm– I'm so confused, I don't know... w-what's going on!"

"Jesus, lady. You're delicate as a damn flower!" The soldier responded in dismay, ignoring the woman's pained requests. "You won't get out of this city alive if you don't harden up! This invasion's a lot worse than just the Russians or the jihadists!"

The soldier continued to drag Durand across the abnormally spacious house. Durand was forced to walk downstairs, straight into the living room. The woman looked up and stared at a party banner decorating the fireplace wall, inscribed with the alien words, '_Bienvenue à la maison de l'Amérique, Annette!_'. Derrosa knew absolutely nothing about the letters inscribed on the banner, but she still understood its meaning for some strange reason.

She hazarded a guess that perhaps it was the colonel who was somehow sharing with her knowledge of the human language while she was inside the human's mind.

_'Welcome home from America, Annette'... curious, _Derrosa thought around the words. _This must be a homecoming party arranged by the human's friends and loved ones..._

"Captain Fournier! I found another civilian asleep upstairs! I can't believe she didn't hear the gunfire and the explosions outside." The soldier gave Durand a light push towards another group of soldiers.

One of the soldiers, the one apparently in charge, nodded at his subordinate. "Very good, Sergeant Brochard. Take her in with the others, it's not safe to venture out right now... to say the damn least." He commanded, his voice noticeably fatigued. "The rest of you lot, I want those windows boarded and the entraces barricaded! We need to weather out this assault before we can get moving again!"

Muttering inadibly to himself, Brochard took Durand by her arm again. "Goddammit, why can't we just shove you down an APC and be done with the lot of you? Civilians are worthless in situations like this!" The soldier manhandled the young woman towards another room in the house, the kitchen. He disposed of Durand by inelegantly shoving her into the room and slamming the door shut.

Durand recovered herself and turned towards the door, her fists clenched in anger. "Fucking bastard! I hope you get yourself killed out there!" She shouted.

"Annette."

The woman turned around and came upon the sight of three male humans; one a full adult and the rest are apparently juveniles, Derrosa guessed. They remained there, sitting disconsolately on the dining chairs.

"Find yourself a seat, sweetheart. They've been here for a while, and I'm sure they won't be leaving our house any time soon." The adult male in civilian clothing and sporting a prosthetic right leg spoke in a tired monotone. He then stood up from his seat. "Can I get you some coffee? We have some from Indonesia in stock, just before you arrived from the States."

Durand sighed and obeyed, taking her seat next to one of the juveniles. "Dad, just _what_ do you think is going on outside? I know that NATO did a good job pacifying the insurgents in the Middle East, so they can't be possibly staging a full-scale invasion on our country right now — they aren't capable of doing that anymore after that superdrone blitz."

"Don't believe what the soldiers said; they're part of the world's problems, they can't be trusted." One of the juveniles, a pudgy, bespectacled teenage boy, proclaimed. "Besides, the jihadists were fighting for a good cause, and the Americans and NATO _just _had to stamp them down, and for what? To steal their oil-rich lands and natural resources, most likely. I wouldn't be surprised if it were NATO soldiers there outside right now, in fact, I'm counting on it."

"You fucking retard," Another, older-looking juvenile cursed at his fellow human.

"Language, Marius." The adult interrupted.

"You're an idiot, Henri." The second juvenile, Marius, didn't even stop to look at the adult. "You spend several hours every day mindlessly staring at your desktop and believing all the crap your fellow conspiracy-types plaster all over the internet for their amusement, and you really expect us to take you seriously? Grow a pair and sort your life out, you worthless slob!"

Henri merely adjusted his glasses and put up his chin haughtily. "You're part of the problem too, Marius. You know all about the lies our government keeps telling us, and you simply choose to believe them and carry on. Not that I can blame you for that — you're not as smart as me, after all."

"...fucking wanker, where the hell did mum go so wrong with him..." Marius grumbled angrily to himself.

The adult male, apparently Durand's father, ignored the feud going on with his two sons and chose to focus on Durand. He scratched his bearded chin in contemplation as he poured hot water into a spare coffee mug. "Why, of course this isn't jihadists. If I could wager a guess, I think the enemy soldiers outside are Ruskie paratroopers." He took a quick sip of his mug. "No matter. We have another house in Brest, the bastards can use this place as a bloody outhouse if they so wished. They'll be driven out of France before long; the Russian army is in no shape to fight against the Union after having to go through a savage thrashing just a year ago."

"Somehow..." Durand carefully took the steaming mug offered to her by her father. She had been nursing persistent migraines for quite a while now. "I don't feel like we're up against the usual threats. I can't place it, but I've a bad feeling that there's something much worse going on."

The father merely shrugged his shoulders. "That's just what being hungover feels like, honey. I can't believe you haven't gotten drunk out of your senses before, especially in places like Los Angeles. The people there seem to just party all day and shag and do drugs all night."

"Speaking of the States, how is your new job, Annie?" Marius had decided to outright ignore his younger brother's pompous remarks, as the matriarch observed with mild amusement. "The violin suits you: it catches the crowd's attention, it's attractive, and the instrument itself is the centerpiece of the entire orchestra. Without it, the whole band would fall apart."

Durand chuckled lightly. "Well, not as good as I'd hoped, but not as bad as I expected. I made some performances, toured the country, made new friends, learned some new languages..." She took a long drink out of her coffee. "Going overseas isn't such a bad idea, after all. It's a decent enough experience. I had my sights on somewhere Eastern European, but I'm not too sure now, if it's really Russians outside."

The father nodded. "That's good. Let's just hope we can make it—"

_Pssshh-**BOOM!**_

"Whoa." The father remarked nonchalantly, even as the house shook slightly from the explosion's shockwave. "Uhhp, here comes the big guns. Get down and cover your ears, kids. This is gonna be—"

His words were cut short when a series of loud explosions that rocked the family's house even more forcefully. When the barrage halted, there followed a period of relative peace and quiet. Even the soldiers inside the other areas of the house stopped scurrying around, their hurried footsteps no longer audible.

Derrosa watched with concern as Durand and her family emerged from under the dinner table, looking quite nervous — Durand most noticeably. From Shepard's stories, the asari matriarch knew the present Colonel Durand as a soldier hardened by the rigors of warfare, not a delicate, easily-frightened civilian. To see the human's past self differing radically from her present self disconcerted the matriarch.

"Is everyone alright?" The father inquired his offspring as they righted themselves. "Anyone hurt?"

"Henri and I are fine," Marius stated. "Annette?"

Durand emphatically nodded. "Y-yes... I'm alright."

"ENEMY ALERT! NECROTICS INBOUND!" A muffled voice shouted in alarm from outside the kitchen. Derrosa feared the worst when ear-shattering sounds of glass breaking and machine-gun fire started to ring out. It was clear that the artillery barrage did not do its job.

"Get down!" The father ordered his children. "Don't move until I say so!"

More rifles joined the sounds of battle. Derrosa could do nothing but continue to watch Durand's memory from the human's own eyes — she scurried off into a deeper part of the kitchen, gasping and whimpering in fear.

"Brochard, get your fat arse over the radio and tell the regiment to send us some fucking support!" Captain Fournier's voice could be heard screaming. "There's too many goddamn bugs and zombies out here!"

The father did not join his children hunkering down. He instead tried to force down the locked door with a dining chair, to secure an escape route for his family.

"Regimental command, do you read? Regimental command, this is Sergeant Brochard of the 17th Infantry! We've engaged with hostile forces on the corner, but we can't hold against their numbers!" The sergeant's voice was heard. "Requesting immediate helicopter gunship support, over! I say again: we need the gunships, now!"

Durand's father did not have much progress with the door. He threw the chair away and ran off to a secluded corner of the kitchen, where a tall, locked-off cabinet was placed. As he searched his pockets for the key, Durand herself seemed on the verge of tears.

"BROCHARD! What the fuck is taking you so long?!" Captain Fournier shouted again, more frantic this time. "They're almost on us over here! Get us those goddamn helicopters, right this instant!"

"I'm getting NOTHING but static, sir!" Brochard shouted back. "I'm trying, but HQ won't pick us up!"

At last, the father secured the key and inserted it into the steel padlock, opening the cabinet. He plunged his hands into the cabinet and they re-emerged holding a gray shotgun and a pistol. After feeding the shotgun with new shells from an ammo box, he went up to the door and blasted off the hinges.

"They're on the front lawn!" A soldier screamed. "Where the hell is that _fucking_ gunsh— hurgh!"

"Jesus Christ, man down!" Another one cried out.

The father stepped back for momentum and then kicked the kitchen door down. "Come on!" He shouted to his kids. "Follow me, let's get out of here!"

Durand, Marius and Henri need not be told twice to run out of the kitchen with their father. They followed him throughout the house, their presence wholeheartedly ignored by the soldiers they came across to focus on the enemy outside. Derrosa, in her curiosity, watched closely as Durand tried to take a prolonged look at the enemy soldiers assailing her country through a barricaded window, being occupied by an allied soldier emptying his assault rifle into it.

What the matriarch saw was deeply disturbing. A swarm of violet-hued, chitinous, four-legged insectoid creatures were massed outside the house in a concentrated attack on the French soldiers' reinforced position. More horrifyingly, there was also a larger group of blood-spattered, green-skinned humans with glowing eyes and slit throats shuffling their way towards the house, with some of them even wearing tattered military uniforms. The two groups outside the house seemed to be allies, as they ambled onward together.

"_Shit! _My gun's all dry, I need a—" The soldier in front of the window was suddenly tackled to the floor when one of the insect-creatures lunged at him from outside, sending thousands of glass shards flying. He screamed in fear, while the creature wasted no time savagely mauling him to pieces. Blood and torn pieces of the soldier's skin spattered the walls and the floor, and he was clear to be alive and conscious throughout the whole thing. Throughout her long and eventful life, Derrosa was sure she had never seen a more terrifying way to leave the mortal fold.

"Fuckin' hell, perimeter breach! Kill that bloody thing!" Fournier and his men promptly turned and emptied all their bullets into the creature, which took a staggeringly large amount of lead before it collapsed over its recent kill, dead.

"Reload and re-man those windows! Don't let the bastards in!" The captain ordered the men. He turned around to monitor his own window. He had enough time to widen his eyes. "MOTHERF—!"

A bright, emerald green explosion smashed open a hole into the house and blasted Captain Fournier's charred, dismembered corpse into a television set. The horde of undead humans outside did not hesitate to shamble their way into the breach, shrugging off the copious amounts of small arms fire the soldiers were pumping into them.

"Come _on,_ Annette!" Durand's father took her by the shoulder and pulled her off. The family of humans left their house through the back door, ignoring the screams and panicked shouts of the soldiers being overwhelmed.

Derrosa had seen enough, she tried to break off the link, but for some reason, she could not. The same force giving her knowledge was also holding her back, trapping her inside Durand's memory.

The family ran into their backyard, and came across their neighbors' tall, wooden fence that blocked their escape.

Durand's father halted his sprint, took his shotgun by the strap and slung it over his shoulder. "Let's go! Up the fence, quick!" He went down on his metal knee and offered a boost up to his children. Wiping the tears from her eyes, Durand went up first, climbing up into the roof of a neighbor's house. Marius followed her swiftly, accidentally injuring himself on the sharp edge of the metal roof.

"Henri, are you coming or not?" The father deadpanned as the youngest of the family hesitated to climb up.

He sighed very bitterly. "Urgh, I'm gonna miss the internet," With that said, the young man let his father help him climb up the fence, onto their neighbor's roof. "

"Okay, pull me up!" The father ordered the children. Durand went down on her knees and offered her hand.

Suddenly, a soldier's mangled corpse was thrown out into the backyard, from a window. The remnants of the 17th Infantry then came running out the back door, providing each other covering fire as they retreated. It wasn't any longer before the insect-creatures and their undead allies then knocked down the back door and the windows and poured out into the open, their mouths salivating for more human flesh.

"On second thought," The father retracted his hand, just before Durand could take it. "I'm gonna buy you a bit of time..."

Durand's eyes widened. "No... no, no, wait! Dad, please don't do this!" She extended her hand further, for her father to take. "We're not leaving without you!"

The father instead put a loaded pistol into Durand's open palm. "It's about time I joined your mother, honey. I'm sorry, but I'll be only slowing you down." He gestured at his prosthetic leg. "Don't cry over me, my children. I won't last for long, so do your old man one final favor: run, and never look back."

A single tear ran down the father's eye. He gave his children one last confident smile and turned around, drawing his shotgun while running back to the makeshift defensive line the soldiers made as they underwent the final stages of a last stand. One of the soldiers, a demolitions expert, pulled out all the pins on the grenades strapped to her chest rigging and primed a satchel charge, just as three of the insects pounced on her and tore her body to ribbons.

Marius took his sister by her shoulders. His grip was noticeably weaker than normal. "Don't look, Annette! We must go, now!"

Henri took his sister by an arm. He said nothing.

"...alright. Let's find a way out the city." With the father gone, Durand was forced to take the lead by virtue of being the oldest in the family. The three of them ran across the roof, eventually making their way to the chaotic streets after climbing down. They showed no weakness when the ear-shattering blast indicative of a massive detonation came through.

Derrosa was shocked when she saw the horrifying state of the city streets through Durand's eyes.

Panicked citizens fled towards anywhere they thought would give them sanctuary, but it was of some comfort that most of them have already been evacuated from the city by the military. As for the military itself, disordered platoons of French soldiers accompanied by battle-scarred armored vehicles half-heartedly advanced towards the hostile front, in vain hope of re-securing their territories and restoring order. Buildings of all sizes were oftentimes hit by green energy bolts from several frigate-sized alien vessels ominously looming above the city, blowing off chunks of rubble that fell onto the streets, which made the act of standing near any tall structure a very hazardous activity indeed. Stacks of black smoke came from all over the place, and every once in a while, a brief dogfight between human and alien fighter planes would occur in the skies.

No wonder humans in the present loathed aliens so.

"Christ..." Henri beheld the disaster that had fallen upon his home. "No way we're leaving the city inside a car; every street must be blocked all the way to Paris, just looking at all these abandoned vehicles!"

"We'll make it there on foot if we have to!" Durand said, as the three of them navigated the chaotic street. "Marius, you're a police cadet! Can you use this pistol?" She handed over the gun to her brother.

Marius hesitantly took the gun. "I'm just a fledgling, so don't expect me to be an amazing shot!"

Durand licked her lips and looked around. "Well, looks like you won't have to use it after all! There!" She pointed at a damaged supply helicopter sitting further down the street, being tended to by a team of army engineers. "If we make it there, they might get us a ride out of this—"

The human gasped and her vision promptly blacked out as she felt a sudden force sweep her off her feet and launch her a considerable distance away, her flight only ended when her back struck something metallic and pole-like. Even Derrosa felt some measure of Durand's pain. The matriarch feared that her host's spine might have taken some irreversible damage.

Slowly Durand's sight and hearing came back to her. She tried to move, but a lance of pain concentrated on her spine kept her down on the side of the road. She craned her neck to look behind her, coming upon the sight of the street sign she broke her back on. Looking ahead, then, she saw a large, canister-like drop-pod device of an obviously alien design, sticking out of the pavement with smoke coming out of the top section. Had she been standing just a few centimeters to the right some moments ago, Durand would have been flattened under the weight of the strange object that fell from the skies.

"There! This is where we left her!"

With the same group of soldiers they spotted repairing the helicopter earlier, Marius and Henri came into view, approaching their sister.

"She nearly got hit by that, _thing!_" Henri indicated at the alien device on the pavement for the soldiers.

The army engineers exchanged bewildered looks before quickly moving to Durand. Their lieutenant examined her briefly with what Derrosa concluded as a primitive version of an omni-tool before speaking, "She's conscious, but judging from her injuries, I don't think she's fit to walk any time soon. Martin, Chausson, get back to the chopper and get us a stretcher, will you? And make it quick, we've only got a few minutes before we need to bug out of this city."

"Right away, ma'am." One of the soldiers responded. He made to double back with his partner, when the alien device unexpectedly started spewing out thick clouds of an unknown syrupy green substance. A hoarse scream of fear and alarm from one of the soldiers, a disordered scramble for weapons and a rushed flurry of panicked actions later, and the situation plunged into full chaos almost immediately.

Durand could do nothing but watch as the green mist swiftly enveloped those in close proximity and pinned their bodies down to the ground, as if the clouds possessed minds of their own. Trying to struggle out of the viscous restraints proved futile and counterproductive, as the substance seemed to become much more clingy when pressed.

Henri and Durand herself were among those immobilized by the clouds, but Marius was fortunate enough to be standing some distance away from the device when the clouds started to waft out of it, managing to be the only one remain unbound. On the verge of panicking and with his father's pistol in his trembling grasp, the young man ran the distance between himself and his family, too scared out of his wits to care as he ran over the paralyzed, still-living bodies of their would-be rescuers.

"Oh my God, oh my God, OH MY GOD!" Marius ran his hands over Durand's shoulder and face, trying to remove the substance paralyzing her with his bare hands. "They're coming for us, Annette! What do I do, Annette, WHAT DO I DO?!"

Durand didn't respond, for she couldn't, nor did she know an answer to Marius' panicked inquiry. The only warning Marius received of his impending demise was the horrified look on her sister's eyes, and the purple sheen that appeared momentarily on them.

Twin bone-like talons suddenly emerged from Marius' chest, splattering Durand with his blood and eliciting a yelp of agony from the young man. Derrosa felt the same amount of despair and shock Durand had suffered through at that dreadful moment in time.

The talons quickly unsheathed themselves from Marius' flesh, dropping him to his knees. Durand watched as Marius struggled to control himself and ignore the pain as he reached for his dropped pistol. The siblings shared a knowing look, and in that instant, they both knew what should be done.

Marius, gasping in pain and bleeding to death, slowly edged his gun to point at his sister, intending to spare her from a hideous death before doing in himself. Matriarch Derrosa's eyes were wide and her heart was beating so fast, it wouldn't surprise her if she was undergoing a cardiac arrest in the real world.

Before he could end it for Durand, however, the insectoid alien behind him shrieked and repeatedly impaled him again and again. Marius screamed and released his grip on the pistol as he was dragged by the alien away from his sister. Dropping its prey on the pavement, the creature didn't waste time slashing the young man's throat open with its talons and then regurgitating the slimy contents of its putrid mouth into the gaping, bloody wound it made.

Derrosa's senses were overwhelmed with an intense feeling of grief and terror — so much that she felt herself losing consciousness due to the sheer amount of psychological pressure crushing her mind. She couldn't even comprehend why the insect creature that killed Marius started shrieking loudly, as if in pain. Soon after, the creature's head seemed to start leaking yellow fluids before its skull inexplicably imploded on itself, killing the monstrosity.

...

**The Sickbay - Lingshan Station**

**July 26th, 2157 - 2130 hours**

**Colonel Shepard**

After two hours have passed by, and Matriarch Derrosa was still linked with Colonel Durand's mind, Shepard developed a slight suspicion that something was wrong. what with how the asari twitched and appeared a little distressed. Still, he just shrugged and entered the sickbay again, to get himself a seat. Standing around and doing nothing for a couple of hours while inside a suit of Ilyushinite armor certainly felt far from comfortable.

Though, after another hour had passed, and mindlessly talking with Mitrofanov and Lillis about rumors concerning the shady experiments Dr. Garamond was conducting in the nearby Reyes Station had started to bore him, Shepard dared to spare Matriarch Derrosa a glance from behind his shoulder. What he saw took him aback.

Derrosa, still sporting the pitch-black eyes and rooted to her spot near Durand, was now convulsing uncontrollably and looked to be bleeding from her nose and ears.

"Someone get me the ambassadors and a psyker, quickly!" The colonel ordered the two agents. Mitrofanov gave one confused look at what Shepard was staring at and quickly bolted out of the room.

Lillis gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. "Mother of God..."

"Don't just stand there, soldier! Help me out!" Shepard ran to the matriarch and the colonel, collapsing his helmet as he did so. Lillis followed after him, fearing the worst.

Reaching the the ambassador and their comrade, Shepard saw the look of utter horror and revulsion present on both their faces. Derrosa must have stumbled across a particularly harrowing memory, the colonel thought, and that was saying something, as Durand's past consisted mostly of harrowing ordeals. "Any idea what we should do?" He slowly inquired his fellow agent.

Lillis shook her head mournfully. "None of us are psionic, I'm about as stumped as your are, sir."

Shepard thought to himself for a moment, thinking what Karlotte would do. "Psioempathic links severed themselves when stretched far enough, I'm told. We should separate these two."

"Well, that's certainly better than my idea." Lillis nodded. "Shocking them both with an arc thrower might do more harm than good."

Shepard frowned, giving his fellow agent an unamused expression. "Look, just watch over the colonel for me, will you? If she wakes up, goes insane and tries to kill you, then by all means, don't hesitate to do what you can to defend yourself – neutralize her as a threat if you must."

He took a deep breath and placed his gauntleted hands over Derrosa's shoulders, making an effort to control her spasms. "I'll take the matriarch back to her colleagues. They should know what to do with—"

Derrosa's eyes suddenly shot open without warning, startling Agent Lillis. Shepard slowly noticed the disturbed look she was sporting. "Eunike? Is there something you need to tell me?"

In a stilted, unnatural manner, the asari turned her head to look at the colonel behind her. Shepard lifted his hands from the matriarch's shoulders and tried his best to look unconcerned for her well-being. "Uhm, do you need to sit down for a while, matriarch? Did you find what you were looking for?"

Shepard's fears were confirmed when the alien started sobbing. His previous misgivings towards her temporarily forgotten, the colonel sighed and offered his armored shoulder for Derrosa, who had already broken down in tears.

"Ah, hell." The colonel mumbled to himself. It was certainly much simpler to think of these aliens as a simple, unthinking, destructive force of nature like the Advent before them, but as the days passed and more interactions between Federal forces and members of the Council Races were made, it soon became apparent that the two parties shared a disturbing amount of similarities, as Shepard warily noted.

"Come on, Zarina." Shepard started walking outside, supporting the matriarch as he did so. "Let's get you home."

...

* * *

**EXTRATERRESTRIAL COMBAT UNIT HICOM DATABASE**

**|The following database entries are information successfully appropriated by XCOM field agents while infiltrating turian installations, deep within established Hierarchy territory. These entries are declassified by Director Faust for general base personnel use, under EO 391820.30482. Please report any encountered damaged data to Schultz tech support.|**

**I. Entry 749.1120.45: A scientist's summarization and assorted observations of the Relay 314 Race, AKA 'Humanity', 'The Federation of Mankind'**

_\- Database entry by Dr. Mephilius Avicus, Hierarchical government chief scientist, senatorial advisor and xenobiology researcher, made for His Venerability Valerius Corvinius, Primarch of Palaven._

First encountered by Hierarchy forces two months ago while illegally trying to open a derelict secondary mass relay, citizens of the Federation of Mankind are most commonly described physically as a people of warm-blooded mammals which stood shorter than turians to some degree, possessed an internal makeup only differing slightly from common bipedal primate species, and are built with levo-amino acids like asari and salarians. It is a notable fact that the physical appearance and body structure of human females are observed to highly resemble asari with hair growing over their heads instead of scalp-crests, and that some members of the species are born as 'Psionics' — exceedingly rare individuals born with the 'Gift', the ability to easily influence the mental faculties of other creatures through a psychic connection. Extreme caution is expected to be observed when making contact or engaging human soldiers, and no less than a full retreat is expected of Hierarchical troopers when encountering a hostile Gifted human unless adequately prepared and with an advantage in numbers.

Another noted fact is the massive technological gap between any Citadel race and the Federation, especially in the military department. The vessels they use for spacefights are unbelievably massive and durable, and there's talk among the shipmasters of a hyper-advanced, squid-shaped phantom vessel operating within the Federal Navy's ranks that we have no natural counters to in our arsenal thus far. Disconcertingly, the most common, most lowly grunts in the Federal army are given plasma-based energy weapons as main armaments, and powered exosuits made out of the alien material 'Ilyushinite' for full-body protection. The Federation's heavy use of DEWs meant that an opposing army heavily dependent on kinetic shielding (which is what most Citadel forces are) will be quickly crushed under human powered boots, and despite not possessing high-quality kinetic shielding technology themselves, the humans compensate by having their troops and their spaceborne ships equip armor that aren't too easily penetrated by mass-accelerated bullets and salvoes. Our only saving grace, no matter how rare they might be in our army, is through our biotic soldiers. The biotic barriers they conjure are the only reliable protection against directed-energy weapons fire that we know of so far, and field tests with captive Gifted humans suggest that biotics suffer less adverse effects from psionic attacks. I recommend hiring asari freelance commandos to supplement our soldiers' ranks with much needed biotic power, in case our cadres proved insufficient.

First contact with this race of aliens was, I must say, not executed _properly_. A Draius Ferlodinus Legion task force opened fire on human scouting vessels as they tried to gain access through a relay covered by Council law as strictly off-limits. Normal procedure would entail something along the lines of a very stern warning and a hefty credit fine against those responsible, but for some odd reason that eludes even me, Captain Regulus' forces resorted immediately to violence. Needless to say the legion annihilated most of the scouting vessels, but at a great cost in cruisers, frigates and men, including the captain himself. Even worse, some of the aliens escaped to warn a nearby colony, which is apparently designated by the humans as Shanxi, their most populous colony outside their home system of Sol.

A brief, but incredibly bloody war between the Hierarchy (and later, the Citadel) and the Federation erupted. An even larger expeditionary force under the command of Admiral Nandrakan miserably failed to secure Shanxi under turian hands, and several Hierarchy-controlled planets bordering Federal territory suddenly stopped responding to hails from Palaven High Command, including a garden world littered with prothean ruins. The humans even went as far as proving their unmatched military might to the councilors themselves personally by landing an invasion force within the Citadel itself — truly a feat for the ages. Bless the Spirits, their invasion was beaten back by Citadel forces, with Hierarchical forces playing a major part in repelling the assault.

After the audacious raid, the councilors were quick to learn that a continued war with the Federation would spell doom for the galactic community at large, and scrambled to assemble a makeshift diplomatic party led by the first senior diplomat they got their hands on: Matriarch Zarina Derrosa. Their primary objective was to secure a peace treaty with the aliens, and then try to make them join the Citadel if they could. Despite her well-known, persistent lack of self-confidence, Zarina managed to broker a white peace, but predictably failed to secure the Federation's alliance, which would have taken a miracle to accomplish, anyway. Ambassador Moderatus gave us no small amount of adverse criticism for the plan's secondary goal, saying that it would be eventually discovered and have the humans feeling insulted.

The utter savagery of how humans conducted war, and the merciless brutality and xenophobia exemplified by their soldiers immediately cast the humans into a very negative light on the average turian citizen, and more recent media in holovids, literature and video games started introducing human characters that are distinguished as bloodthirsty power-armored savages — a role that the krogan used to have a near-complete monopoly on. However, there is a popular trend within the youth of every Citadel race (not just our own) to see the Federation as... very aesthetically pleasing, and most assuredly, I can see some of the appeal to this trend. Their Navy officer uniforms look positively grand and intimidating at the same time, I must admit.

As of the present time, humans have kept mostly to their own inside their territory, which is exactly what we needed them to do while we struggle to rebuild our armies to effectively counter plasma-based weaponry and psionic attacks. Palaven Command was warned by Federation Prime Minister Danival Grimketelson that human terrorists, 'EXALT' members, might intrude in on Citadel space and start wreaking havoc on civilians, but so far, there had been no recorded incidents of human terror attacks within our own territory. There were, however, some incidents involving human spacecraft running into Hierarchy-aligned parties within the buffer zone, which resulted in either a violent confrontation, a very awkward exchange of low-tech goods, or the two sides merely passing each other without so much as a glance. Turian deaths from skirmishes within the buffer zone are surprisingly rare, and so far, only nineteen merchant vessels and an outlaw corvette were obliterated by energy weapons fire.

I leave this incomplete entry with a final, most pressing note: observers under the Gaius Machallius legion stationed within the Olympus System (the same system that harbored Drekplaats, one of the only former Hierarchy-owned planets that the humans conquered and refused to relinquish control) report that outdated, heavily customized stealth vessels operating under the Migrant Fleet have been moving in and out of the system, apparently to salvage Federation ship-based technology from the derelict hulks they left floating around in the void. It's dubious that the quarians will find anything of value within the wrecks, but if the humans found out about their activities, I predict that the entire Migrant Fleet might suddenly 'vanish' from existence, never to be seen again. While I'm sure that no one will miss the outcasts who brought the geth down upon us, unyielding vigilance and caution must nevertheless be taken to ensure that whatever military action the quarians provoked the humans into taking against their people, it'll only be restricted to them.

We wouldn't want to provoke the Federation's wrath... at least until we're ready.

**II. Entry 749.1121.08: Subject: A Report Concerning Our Dear Neighbors**

_\- Database entry written and submitted by Matriarch Benezia, addressed to the Citadel Council, the Asari Republics, the Turian Hierarchy, the Salarian Union, the Illuminated Primacy, the Vol Protectorate and the Courts of Dekuuna._

Since their... energetic introduction into the galactic stage, the Federation adopted a rather loose 'isolationist' stance, preferring to keep matters to themselves while only intervening in Citadel matters when it indirectly concerned them. After Fleet Admiral Norman Draynor and a heavily-armed Federation diplomatic party visited Digeris to 'commemorate' the end to their war against the Hierarchy and to show their condolences to the Hierarchy government for the numerous turian casualties, humans have busied themselves into sending propaganda to alien worlds that bordered their territories. They frequently showcased their advanced technological prowess and military might, all in an obvious effort to intimidate the worlds' local rulers into refraining from interfering with Federal affairs.

Recently, the Citadel Council, in a joint effort with the Asari Republics, tried to offer a trade agreement with the humans to slightly remedy the tense diplomatic relations between the races, but the offer was promptly refused by the Federation head, President Lazarenko himself. As a result, Citadel-aligned parties have never approached close enough to Federation core worlds to study the humans, and vice-versa. We know depressingly little about humans outside the fires of warfare, and what's worse? The humans might know more than we expect them to about us, thanks to the databases they salvaged from our shipwrecks. Any attempt to copy their ways of gathering information would be counterproductive and dangerous, as the starship databases we salvaged from _their _wrecks detonate violently when accessed by anyone without human DNA.

Speaking of copying, all of our attempts to reverse-engineer Federation captured tech have all ended in miserable failure. The humans made sure that all pieces of equipment they left behind would take a monumental amount of effort just to disable the self-destruct mechanism built within, and even more effort just in comprehending how the tech's inner workings functioned. Human plasma weaponry proved especially hard to study, due to the completely foreign technology used in making these remarkable tools of war. It seems, given their checkered history with extraterrestrials, the humans learned that having their own weapons turned against them would be less than ideal, and made major strides to prevent such a thing from happening to them in turn.

In summary, the humans have probably succeeded in reverse-engineering our tech with flying colors and learned much about us in the process, while we know next to nothing about them, and our own engineers and xenotechnologists are indefinitely stuck, fearing for a wayward catastrophic plasma explosion whenever they so much as _looked _upon Federation technology. In a way, our efforts to surpass our rivals by replicating their tech reminds me of a vorcha, trying to figure out how his first pistol worked.

Finally, as for our endeavors to make light of the 'Gift', as the humans called their inexplicable abilities over the mind, I'm afraid our progress is just as bad as our other projects as described above. The dream of successfully using psionic soldiers of our own is a distinct impossibility as of present, I am aware. But with the return of Hierarchy admiral Tresdin Galvocius from a Federation POW camp, who had apparently seen the inner workings of a top-of-the-line human science facility focused on psionics, we might be seeing our very own Gifted soldiers in the Citadel defense force in near future, if we proved auspicious enough.

**III. Entry 749.1125.61: Subject: This is really ****embarrassing. Seriously, just what the hell were you thinking?**

_\- Entry 749.1125.61 is a private extranet message composed by Fleetmaster Aureliana Nandrakan, for His Venerability Valerius Corvinius, Primarch of Palaven. Database entry 749.1125.61 has been declassified under orders of His Venerability Nikodemos Fedorian._

Hail, primarch. Forgive me for pinging you at such a late hour, but this matter didn't really sit well with me. At all.

As you know, just yesterday at the very start of his week-long 'friendly' visit to our planet, I was approached by my Federation counterpart and we had a bit of a talk. Not long after that, we were involved in an incident that made a complete fool of myself, drove the local populace into a frenzy and nearly ruined my career. You've no doubt seen the... tension... throughout the whole affair, and being the pragmatic asshole politician that you are, you assigned _me, _a glorified admiral with years of combat experince to basically attach myself into his retinue to serve as some sort of blasted _tour guide _for the rest of his visit.

I can think of ways that a man of a high political standing such as yourself could do to alleviate our less-than-stellar diplomatic relations with the humans, but really, why do you have to do this to me? Is it because we're on friendly terms now?

...

* * *

**From the author who just escaped from Valve-Time, to those very patient readers still aboard:**

First of all, I'd like to say... I'm sorry. Truly, I am.

I'm a bastard for taking up most of the year for me to finally submit a bloody chapter. I started writing this just a few days after the last one during summer break, hoping that I'd be able to finish it before real life catches up to me, but alas, I was too slow and got too occupied by... other activities. I also remember writing about making the chapters shorter, but no, I found that I can't bear the thought of submitting a chapter that isn't sufficiently long and up to my standards. So in effect, I've been continuously adding words to this chapter over the course of the months, at the rate of maybe 50 words a day or less, since I needed to make preparations for the day ahead, whether it'd be dedicated to my job, my courses or whatever. I admit, sometimes I get distracted and decide to just play videogames in what little free time I was given instead of writing, and what's worse, I lost motivation to finish this chapter on some days, not helped by the fact that writer's block took hold of me, too. I'm absolute rubbish when it comes to writing chapters like this one; I'm just glad I finally got it over with, and I'll now be able to proceed to the original ME plot. Finally.

The next chapter, which shouldn't take long, would be a little similar to the first one: a timeline of events. Yes, there will be a pretty big timeskip from 2157 to 2183, but I'll also be writing about the ensuing events in between the two dates, in the form of short stories within the chapter (which includes things like the Skyllian Blitz, the Siege of Khar'Shan, and an insight into life as an XCOM novice). It'll be about a Cold War situation between the human and alien governments, after peace was negotiated.

Once again, I'd like to apologize to you, the reader, for having to put up waiting for an inordinately large amount of time. I'll try my very best to avoid doing something like this again. Life (and an unhealthy amount of distractions) just gets in my way, I guess.

* * *

Edit, 06/09/15: Finally had some time to bisect the most glaring walls of texts. Chapter should be less of an eyesore now. Minor sentencing errors corrected.


End file.
